


Hello You

by weeesi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Meet Differently, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, John Doesn't Have a Bad Leg, John Doesn't Mind, John Watson is Having A Bad Night, John is Bi and Very Okay with That, M/M, POV John Watson, Romantic Comedy, Then It Gets Better Before It Gets Worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:30:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weeesi/pseuds/weeesi
Summary: John kind of can’t believe he’s doing this and kind of can’t imagine doing anything else. He dips his head, heart pounding.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt: au of “i’m pretending to be ur bff bc u looked VERY uncomfortable with that person at the bar hitting on u” 
> 
> Except yeah they ain’t just bffs, they bfs. Always wanted to do a fic with some sort of fake relationship angle, so here it is.
> 
> This fic is now complete! Thanks for reading.

“And then, like, it wasn’t just _my_ problem, you know? ‘Course Clara had to go and cock it up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Literally.” Harry’s voice sounds thin through the speaker of his cheap mobile. The thing is bollocksed. _You get what you pay for,_ John supposes. “She fucked Theo. Broke my fucking heart. Theo. _Theo._ Of all people _._ ”

“Christ.” He has no idea who Theo is.

“Anyway, where’re you off to? 

“Erm—a thing with some mates from uni,” John lies. He’s come off a long, horrendous double shift at the surgery and needs a drink, or two, or more, but he’s not about to tell Harry. She’s seven months sober, or near it, by her last estimate at least. “Probably make an early night of it.” He pauses outside the door to the pub. Some pub. Whatever-the-hell-it’s-called pub. He doesn’t care, as long as there’s alcohol and a mountain of greasy thick chips and something mind-numbing on the telly. “Sorry about Clara, Harry. Really.” He rubs at the back of his neck with the hand that’s not pressing the phone to his cheek.

“Yeah, well. Not exactly blameless either, am I.”

“Still.”

“Yeah.” Harry sucks in a breath between her teeth and pauses long enough that John wonders for a moment if she’s rung off. “Okay. Have fun then, Johnny.” Her voice warms on a sigh. “Speak soon?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” John expects they won’t speak again for another few months. Harry’d called him out of the blue after a long silence, ringing as usual at just the wrong time with rambling updates on her relationship drama. He wants to do better by her, and she him probably, but the truth is they’d never been close and probably never would be.

 _Right. Good luck with all that_ , he thinks, as he tucks the mobile back into the pocket of his jacket. It’s not that he can’t be arsed to sympathise with his older sister and her despair over fuckhead Theo (quite literally), it’s just that he’s got something else more pressing on his mind at the moment. Namely, beer.

He pushes through the cloud of cigarette smoke and through the door to find the pub absolutely packed to the gills with people, the space humming with squiffy conservation and the thuddy beat of dated music. John looks around. Colleagues shove tables together or gather in oblong groups, complaining about so-and-so and trying not to talk office politics but doing precisely that. Lonely chaps suck down their drinks along the bar. The odd gaggle of regulars suffer in silence as they tuck into their sausage rolls; no respectable Englishman of that age would dare to be seen eating chicken wings or macaroni cheese at his local. Luckily no one has noticed John and he doesn’t recognise anyone either, which is always a help when you’re meaning to shovel a plate of chips into your face and drink far more than is sensible for a Wednesday early evening. Shaking away the bit of cold clinging to his jacket, he makes his way from the entrance toward the inviting warmth of the bar, where against all proper British proclivities, the queue has dissolved into something more like a sensible muddle.

“Sorry, you in the queue?”

“What queue, mate!”

He joins the muddle.

Sheffield United versus Leeds tonight. Perfect. John doesn’t give a toss for either.

After a moment’s shuffling he’s close enough to meet the barman’s eye but before he can manage his beer (and a half—no, full portion of chips, why not), he’s distracted by the graceful approach of a woman. A stunningly beautiful woman, really. Everything about her seems…John struggles to find the word. Long. Long blond hair, long legs, long dark eyelashes. She could easily be a model or an X-Factor presenter, something like that, something on telly, he reckons. John briefly entertains the thought that she’s come over to speak to him but instead she brushes by without even registering his attention. Her jeans could be painted on.

John watches her move away from the bar and toward an equally stunningly beautiful man, who bizarrely also seems best described as _long_.

The man is perched in a far corner, fiddling with his phone and nursing what looks to John to be a mostly full pint. He’s all limbs and dark curls, sharp cheekbones and a mouth so uniquely designed that John finds himself just as distracted as the man, who is fixated on his mobile and not on the incoming woman. His burgundy button-down pulls across his chest as he shifts his shoulders. A blue scarf lies crumpled in a heap on the table next to him near a packet of cigarettes. 

John’s forgotten, completely, the point of being at the pub. Like a stone in a river he’s dislodged out of the muddled queue, and finds himself stranded in the corner next to an elderly chap focussed on his drink. 

“This yours?” The man tugs at a beat-up copy of the Times shuffled apart on top of the table nearest John’s elbow.

“No,” John shrugs. He’s not far from the enigmatic couple and is close enough to hear them.

“Hello there,” the woman, cute and coy, says to the man. She places a gin and tonic on the table next to what must be his scarf.

 _Meeting after work?_ John thinks, anticipating the kissy greeting that will follow. 

The man doesn’t look up.

“Thought I’d bring you a drink,” she coos, a hint of expectation in her voice. She obviously assumes he’ll be overcome once he makes eye contact. “You looked a bit… _thirsty_ ,” she tries, as she adjusts her posture to accentuate her cleavage and flips her long hair over her shoulder. A diamond stud in her earlobe catches the light.

The man doesn’t look up, and John wonders if there’s another reason for that beyond simply not hearing her.

No bloke could possibly resist a woman like that.

Well. 

No bloke that’s into women, anyway.

_Is he…?_

After an exaggerated flourish of thumbs, the man looks up and squints at the woman. The pub lighting is dim, easily construed as romantic. There’s nothing romantic in the way he looks at her, sort of like she’s a remotely distressing spot of damp that’s appeared in the loo ceiling overnight.

Even from his distance, John is captivated by the man’s eyes, which are a peculiar shade of blue. No not garden-variety blue, more like sea-green-blue. No. Silver-grey-green-blue, or, sort of like a pale turquoise—

“No.”

“Sorry?”

“I don’t drink gin,” the man says, flat and dismissive.

“Nonsense,” she says, “everyone drinks gin.” She invites herself to push at his shoulder, a manicured tease, then places her handbag down next to him. “I’ve even brought you a lime,” she says, as she pinches it between finger and thumb, and it squirts, defenceless, into the icy glass. She drops it on the table and raises her long finger to her mouth to lick off the juice. “Mmm.” She smiles. “ _Tart_.” She tastes her upper lip with her tip of her tongue. Implying.

John feels an automatic albeit subtle sexual response in his pants, but the man looks frozen in place, unaffected as he watches her without comment, those blue-green-grey-turquoise-sea-weirdly-fascinating eyes hyper-focussed on her as they rapidly scan her face.

 _Is this some sort of role-play thing?_ John wonders _. Are they getting off on this? Am_ I _getting off on this?_

“Wrong.”

“Sorry?”

“Lime juice isn’t tart, it’s bitter or sour depending upon titratable acidity, a factor that played heavily into its historical use of masking the flavour of anti-malarial medication.” The man mutters matter-of-factly, looking down again at his phone. “ _Yum_.”

“Oh,” the woman laughs, and miraculously undeterred, sits. She crosses her legs and uncrosses them and crosses them again. “I’m Gemma. You’re…?”

“Not interested.” The man looks over to the opposite end of the bar, where something’s caught his attention. He’s not noticed John, apparently, nor anyone else, and can barely be said to have noticed Gemma, but John feels the atmosphere around the man shift. Discomfort settles into the furrow between his eyebrows. He’s curt. “Busy.”

“Brilliant!” She smiles as if they were old friends. Still devoted to reeling in the fish she somehow believes she’s caught, she continues, “Who isn’t these days, right?” She laughs again, as if she’s made the world’s cleverest joke before she sucks the straw in the gin and tonic into her mouth and takes a small sip. Her pink lipstick catches around the plastic. The man watches, sizing her up. She stops laughing. “Oh c’mon, just saying hello. I don’t bite.” Another flirty smile, but now there’s something impatient behind it. “You can tell me more about limes if you like.” She reaches for his shoulder again and gives him another light push.

The man looks increasingly uncomfortable. _Is this part of the sex thing?_ John thinks, not convinced and growing more certain than ever that the two parties don’t know each other. _If you’re not interested, get up and leave, mate._ He tries to tear himself away, rejoin the queue, but he can’t. _C_ ompletely invested now, he recalls his rescue of various female acquaintances from overeager suitors in similar situations, and he wonders if his services would be helpful here. He’s certainly close enough to step in, and the woman hasn’t noticed him at all, but the thing is, would the man welcome his intervention or not? The guy seems self-assured and more than a bit acerbic, but clearly discomfited, seemingly can’t or doesn’t want to move from his seat, and for some reason hasn’t told her to piss off. Undaunted, the woman leaves her hand on the man’s arm and slides her palm down the wool sleeve of his jacket.

Irritated, the man opens his mouth just as his gaze meets John’s. 

John feels it in his stomach.

_Oh._

_Hello._

_It’s—_

_Me._

_You_.

Within a matter of seconds the man’s eyes widen, then narrow, appraise, and widen again. He raises an eyebrow ever so slightly and relays a silent message that John doesn’t need help understanding.

_Right._

Immediately, John crosses the short distance and pulls up at their table.

“Christ, sorry I’m late. Y’right?” he says by way of greeting before he’s even come to a stop. Gemma turns, expecting to be the target of the attention and fully surprised when John passes her by in favour of sliding in and wrapping an arm around the back of the man’s shoulders in a half-embrace. John kind of can’t believe he’s doing this and kind of can’t imagine doing anything else. He dips his head, heart pounding, and yet he feels remarkably calm. Now, a risk, this: he’d play a mate if preferred, but maybe the woman would back off sooner if it was clear that the man wasn’t interested in more ways than one.

“Kiss?” he whispers into the man’s ear.

The man nods with a brief dip of his chin.

John angles in and pecks a quick kiss on the man’s cheek, which smells lovely. Must be expensive aftershave, named something ridiculous like “gold-plated sandalwood” or “sun-drenched Italian licorice.”

Then the man turns his head. “Hello you,” he says, with a gorgeous smile up at John, “I’ve been waiting an absolute _age_.” And the man wraps a hand round the back of John’s head, leans in, and kisses him — a full, soft press of a kiss — square on the lips. 

Just like that, John forgets: forgets he’s had a shit day at work, forgets he’s in a pub, forgets he’s not got his beer and chips, forgets he’s interrupted desperate Gemma, forgets he’s just kissed a stranger, and has just been kissed by a stranger, a strange stranger, a man he’s never seen in his life save for the last five minutes. A man he’ll never forget, even if they never cross paths again except for this bleary night in November. Strange, this, but somehow this is a kiss beyond strangeness, a kiss that comes in and eases into the deepest, darkest plumbing of his heart.

It’s just him and the man and John forgets.

“Excuse me,” Gemma sputters. “We were in the middle of a conversation,” she says rather pointedly at John.

The world whooshes back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> British soldiers in India had to take quinine, which was used as medication to prevent malaria. They drank it mixed with gin and tonic water (plus plenty of sugar) because the taste was so atrocious. I guess Sherlock thought this reference would deter poor Gemma but she really wants that D, doesn’t she. Also I googled the acidity thing. I don’t know anything meaningful about limes.
> 
> And yes, I did write a small portion of this in a pub, whilst drinking a pint and listening to a bunch of Sheffield United lads yell mind-numbing things at the telly. Did not have chips, unfortunately.


	2. Chapter 2

“Looked fairly one-sided to me,” John says to Gemma as he rubs at the man’s shoulder. _Back off, Gemma, he’s mine. Sort of. For pretend, at least._ He glances back over at the man, who’s studying him with a laser focus. _We just kissed. He kissed me. I can’t believe we just kissed_. He clears his throat, says to the man, “Erm. Got your text, love. Work was absolutely mad.” 

Like a flip of a switch, the man sets his phone down on the table, exaggerates an eye roll. Plays his part. “Lucien again?”

John pauses. “Y-yes. Lucien.” He reaches an arm across the table for the man’s stale beer. “That bastard.” He takes a sip, grimaces as he swallows. “Ruining the…accounts.” His other arm, he realises, is still slung across the man’s shoulders. He lets it slide away and rests it along the back of the chair.

Gemma’s turn to narrow her eyes. “So what, like. You’re together?” She’s obviously less impressed with John than she was with… _bollocks. What’s his name?_

“We’re friends,” the man says at the same time John says, “we’re together.”

Gemma lets out a short, sharp laugh and looks between them. “Right, so, ‘friends’ kiss on the mouth now, do they.”

They correct her together. 

“Some do.”

“Lovers do.”

They pause again. _Shit_. John starts.

“Right, my boyfriend, Rrr—”

“Ssh—”

“—Ssh—”

“—erlock.”

“—rlock.” John swallows, blinks, tries to act normal. “Sherlock.” The sour-warm beer lingers on his palate. _Sherlock_. _“_ Hi,” he smiles at his boyfriend, doing his best to look besotted. It’s not difficult. "'Course I'm going to kiss him."

Sherlock says nothing but quirks the corner of his mouth.

“Right.” Gemma joylessly laughs again. “You’re telling me _you’re,”_ she points at John, “with _him_ ,” she points at the man (— Sherlock—) “… _really._ ” She seems utterly dumbfounded at their physical mismatch. “You’re moving in on me.” She crosses her arms, cross with John.

“Go on,” Sherlock sighs under his breath.

“What’s your boyfriend’s name, then?” She asks him.

“J-”

“John.”

“Yeah,” John had barely gotten the hint out. _Christ. Good guess, is all. Common enough for someone my age._

All this, on a night when he’d planned to get mostly pissed and stumble his way home alone at pub close. Hasn’t even had a drink yet, but he has had a kiss. A delightful, really good, lovely kiss. 

The crowd around them thrums. The Smiths warble through the speaker… _for once in my life…let me…get what I want…lord…knows…it would be the first time_ …and someone drops a glass by accident. Makes him think of uni, the lie to Harry. Except this isn’t uni, it’s not—what is this?

 _“_ He’s a GP,” Sherlock continues. John looks over in surprise. _Right. Bit less common._ Weird, yeah: _really_ weird, but doesn’t mean he’s not impressed. And a little unnerved, to be honest, but that’s the strangeness of it all. There’s something, some unnamable, un-put-your-finger-on-it-able thing about Sherlock that makes him feel a thrill. The best kind of thrill, where anything could happen, and just might. 

_Make it more believable._

Sherlock’s hand is relaxed where it’s curled on the sticky tabletop, so John reaches for him slowly enough for him to pull away if he’d prefer. He doesn’t move. John slides his hand into the little space beneath Sherlock’s, palm to palm, and long fingers gently close around shorter ones.

_Well._

Music bops in the background. Joy Division. _Love…love will tear us apart…again…_

Gemma bites her lip. She’s softening, John can tell. She isn’t homophobic but with rare persistance, she refuses to leave and also refuses to believe that the two men really know each other. Apparently she thinks John’s spotted the best-looking bloke in the bar and is simply moving in on her man. The dating pool in London isn’t exactly tiny, but Sherlock seems one in a million. Naturally everyone would want to show their cards.

“Alright, if you’re together or whatever,” she flips her long blond hair over the opposite shoulder, uncrosses and recrosses her legs again, “how did you meet?” She purses her lips.

“We don’t owe you any—” John starts but Sherlock begins, “Two years ago, January, Canary Wharf tube station. John lent me his phone to send a text.” He takes a pull off the stale beer. “Ended up chatting, didn’t we,” he makes eyes at John, “and rode together on Jubilee all the way back to Baker Street.”

“Yeah, Baker Street,” John comments. 

“To my flat.” 

John squeezes Sherlock’s hand. “Erm, great location. Moved in straight away.”

“The next day.” 

The picture of domestic bliss, they are. John wishes this was real. “Just…fell in love, really.”

“The next day, sure.” Gemma, hawk-eyed on their joined hands, takes another sip of her drink over the loud cheers of some shouty people who’ve moved into their area.

“This seat taken?” A handsome man with striking dark eyes and a steel-cut jaw places his hand on the back of the fourth chair at their table, winks at Sherlock.

“ _Yes_ ,” they all three chime at once. Sherlock, John notices, lets his eyes linger on the man a moment too long.

He backs off without another word.

John leans forward. Time to put the nail in the coffin. “Gemma,” he pauses, collecting his thoughts. “You’ve spent quite the effort, really. This is what’s going to happen. I’m going to have a nice, quiet pint alone with my boyfriend after the shitter of the day I’ve had and you’re going to go suck lime juice off your fingers for someone else.”

“Sorry?!” Gemma, obviously unused to any type of rejection, finds this entire situation unbelievable. “How do _you_ know my name?” she accuses loudly. “Having a drink and perving? Get off on harassing innocent women, do you?!”

John opens his mouth and hopes that whatever he’s about to say will make even a small amount of sense, but before he can think of anything, Sherlock straightens his spine, sits up in his seat, cocks his head off to the side, and takes a short, efficient breath before launching into a diatribe unlike any John has ever witnessed.

“For starters, _Gemma_ , John wouldn’t have needed to hear you drop your name in-between the incessant drivel you’ve attempted and failed to woo me with as it’s patently obvious, considering your penchant for knock-off handbags, the pinky finger on your right hand, and your tendency to pick up two prepackaged meals-for-one at the M&S in Waterloo after work so as to make it look like you’ve someone waiting at home who has different gastronomical preferences than you, a someone which you’ve certainly _not got_ , because you let those meals linger frost-bitten in your fridge whilst you go out of an evening and make eyes at men who are either married or gay or both and fancy yourself the catch of anyone and everyone in a pub like this, mostly because you’re too intimidated to go back to the All Bar One down the street since you shattered that bottle of vintage Veuve Cliquot at your sister’s hen do last month, particularly since they kicked you out to the kerb and your sister didn’t come after you, did she, because you think she thinks you think she thinks she’s better than you, and honestly, Gemma, that _hurts,_ doesn’t it, mostly because you know she’s _right_.”

John lets out a breath. 

Sherlock wraps up the speech. “And lastly, it’s been quite the reverse. Like I said before, _from_ the beginning: Not. Interested.”

The silence stretches out to one beat, two, three. John can tell by her face it’s all true, or at least most of it is.

“How did you know—” John and Gemma both start — 

“—all that?” John finishes, wonderstruck.

“—my bag’s a knock-off?!” Gemma’s mouth hangs open. “200 quid, that was!”

“Next time save yourself the trouble,” Sherlock says, holding up their still joined hands. “Move along.” 

“You’re _mental_ , you are.” Gemma spews as she scrambles for her bag, and her drink, and what’s left of her pride, and shoots up out of her chair. “You’re perfect for each other.” And finally, once and for all, leaves them to once again mingle in the too-crowded pub’s muddled queue. 

“Likewise,” Sherlock mutters as John shouts, “Bye!” after her a little too loudly. He turns to Sherlock and grins, unable to help himself. “That was incredible.” 

They’re still holding hands. 

“Hardly. Gemma is a walking advert.” Sherlock, façadedropped, releases John’s fingers and once again picks up his phone, presses the button to check the lockscreen. A flurry of texts appear.

“So you didn’t…”

“Make it all up?” Sherlock clarifies. “Not a word.” He shoves the phone into his coat pocket and looks up at John, studies him. Looks at John in a wholly different way than he’d ever looked at Gemma.

“Then how did you—"

“How did I know?” 

John nods. 

“It’s my job to know,” Sherlock says. “I’m a consulting detective.”

John blinks. “Like a private detective?”

“No.”

“You work for the Met?”

“I do the Met’s work.”

John doesn’t quite know what to make of that. He shifts in his chair. “So, you could…read or whatever, my name from—”

“—from the way you hold yourself, the way you dress, the length of your hair, the frown lines on your forehead. Terrifically straightforward,” Sherlock finishes for him, pauses, seems to slow his thoughts, seems to realise most people would think he’s edging on rude. “But you’re not.” He clears this throat. “Straightforward, I mean. Compared to most people.” He pinches the packet of cigarettes, deposits them in his other pocket, and looks up again at John, expectant. 

“Compared to most people.”

“Most people are insufferably dull.”

“You knew I was a GP.”

“Not just a GP. An Army doctor.” Sherlock says. “But I didn’t know. I looked.”

John, flummoxed and astonished and incapable of not showing it, makes a small, awed noise.

As if this is his cue, Sherlock pushes up and out of his chair, awkwardly formal. “Thank you. For what you did."

John doesn’t know what to say. “It’s.” He breathes out, raises his eyebrows. “Well, she was quite persistent, wasn’t she,” he laughs awkwardly. He’d felt a spark between them before, he was sure of it, but now, now Sherlock seems all business, ready to get on with things.

John feels an unfamiliar, throttled beat of uncertainty in his chest.

_Should I bring up the kiss? Did it mean anything?_

“Ghastly,” Sherlock agrees. 

Before John can stop himself he asks, “Why didn’t you just tell her to piss off?”

Sherlock has a look in his eye John can’t quite place. He pauses. “Knew you’d do it for me,” he says.

“Ah.” John’s mind goes blank. How do you say _I feel just the same, there’s something about you already in me?_ He feels utterly out of his depth. He’s ridiculously attracted to Sherlock and _wants_ , desperately wants. Wants what: another kiss? To snog like sixteen-year-olds? A date? To be friends? To meet up once a week at this same table, the place where they first met? _All of it. Anything,_ his heart tells him, _take anything_. _Don’t lose this._

“Got to run,” Sherlock sighs. “I’ve a meeting with the Foreign Secretary in—” he glances at his watch, “—seven and a half minutes and my brother’s fussing like a peckish toddler about Liechtenstein again,” he says, as though this was a totally normal thing to say. 

“Right.”

Sherlock holds out his hand. “Goodbye, John.” They shake on it. 

 _Think! Do something!_ John panics. _Get his number, something_.

“See you—?” Sherlock pauses. Quirks an eyebrow. Doesn’t ask John to meet up again. Doesn’t ask for his contact details. Nothing of the sort, but there is a beat there, a space that neither of them knows how to fill.

“Yeah. Great to—yeah.” John nods, fumbling, heart aching. “See you.”

Sherlock turns and walks away without looking back, past the thinning queue and out of the pub crowd, through the heavy wooden door and into the night. The sun’s disappeared long ago  behind London’s skyline and a wintry breeze has picked up. John watches Sherlock out the window turn up his coat collar and shove his hands deep into his pockets.

After a moment he vanishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Jubilee Line’s handy” has always been one of my favourite bits from TRF.


	3. Chapter 3

People push up against the nearly emptied table, crowd into the open space, move the chair, then the other, then the third from here to there and over and back again, scuffing the worn carpet. John manages to get himself a beer. Orders the full portion of chips. He takes a drink still belly-up the bar. 

Takes another.

Goes back to the table.

Takes another.

Goes back to loneliness.

The Kinks’ Dave Davies croons over the speakers…s _trangers on this road we are on…we are not two…we are one…_ and John considers what he has lost. Maybe nothing. Maybe he was meant to step in and save some guy from some unwanted attention, have a good laugh, drink a couple of pints, go about his night, about his life, and that was always to be the end of it. Maybe his failure, his inaction after action, is nothing more than the minimum of what had been written on his cards all along. But somehow, he can’t shake the idea that it wasn’t, it isn’t supposed to be like that. Not like that. Not with him. They’re not two ships in the night, they can’t be. But the thing he can’t figure is: had Sherlock thought they were?

John swallows another mouthful of beer. Drinks swallow after swallow until the back of his nose burns. 

He cheerlessly thanks the woman who brings his chips, douses them in malt vinegar and too much salt, and eats half of them without tasting a single bite. He sees Gemma leave after a bit, her hand tucked into the back trouser pocket of a well-dressed idiot of a City boy. _So long, Gemma._ He gets up and orders another beer, fights off the natural encroachment that occurred in his brief absence, and drinks half his next pint in one go. John looks down at the tabletop, picks with a fingernail at the bent-up plastic edge of the stuck-on number placard. Looks at his empty hand where Sherlock’s hand had been, at Sherlock’s still mostly full pint. 

At Sherlock’s blue scarf crumpled in a heap.

“Hang on,” he says aloud to no one. “Hang on.”

He grabs the scarf and abandons his stupid beer and his stupid uneaten chips and nearly knocks over his chair as he pushes it away, shoves through the crowd and out onto the road. The wind whips at his jacket. He stops to look one way down the pavement,— then the other, — squints across the street, — inspects every person huddled against the building smoking their last before heading in from the cold—: nothing, of course. Too much time has elapsed. Of course Sherlock would be well gone. 

John stands like a coiled spring. Hanging from his hand, the scarf: mute and idle, no help at all.

He notices a black cab with its top light off dawdling at the kerb further along up the road. Clouds of exhaust flood John’s view of the passenger inside but…c _ould it_ …His heart in his throat, he breathes out a sigh of relief as sees the back of man’s head. Dark curls, coat collar turned up. The jut of a cheekbone flushed from the evening’s chill.

John breaks out into a sprint, holds up the scarf as he runs, its length flailing behind him. “Wait!” He yells, waving his arm, “Sherlock! Wait!” Reaching the cab just as it’s started to pull off, he thumps a hand twice on the back left window. “Oi! Stop!” 

“What in the living _fuck_ , mate?!” shouts the disgruntled passenger, a dark-haired, long-coated man who is definitely _not_ Sherlock, as he cranks open the door. The cabbie stamps on the brake as John knees against the man’s arm and scrambles into the seat next to him. The impatient driver of the car behind them beeps her horn. 

“Sorry—” John starts, “—thought you were someone else,” before he susses out he’s not sorry at all, “actually, sod it. I need this cab.”

“Get out,” the cabbie and his passenger say at once. The other car angles out and scoots aggressively round them, honking all the way.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where the Foreign Secretary holds meetings at this hour?” John reaches for his wallet. “Fifty quid if you take me there.” He holds out the bills, presses them up against the partition. The cabbie laughs. John turns to the passenger. “Please.”

“Are you mad?” The passenger tucks his coat closer. “Get out of the cab or I’m calling the police.”

“Ah! Not a bad idea, actually, he said he worked for the Met. Or—they worked for him or something. I dunno.” This earns John two quizzical looks, one from the rearview mirror and one from his disapproving mate huddled far away from him in the back seat. “I dunno. Doesn’t matter.” John absentmindedly wraps the scarf round his neck to get it out of the way as he thumbs again into his wallet. “C’mon. Fifty each, plus your fare,” he nods over at the man. 

The cabbie raises his eyebrows. "Foreign Secretary, you said?” He laughs again. “You got an appointment?”

The man doesn’t find it funny in the least. “Piss off! This is my cab!” 

“Well now it’s _mine_ , sir, and bloody hell I must say I don’t appreciate that type of language from my passengers,” the cabbie says pointedly. “He’s paying your fare. No harm done. Cleveland Street, weren’t it?” 

The man pouts. “Fitzroy Mews, actually.”

“What you’re offering’s not exactly above board with the LTDA, if you take my meaning, mister,” the cabbie says to John as he pulls them out into traffic. They ease in behind a bus which completely blocks out the view of the street ahead of them. “No sir, I don’t take bribes.” The cabbie looks out the window, drums a hand over the steering wheel. “No sir, no sir, no sir, don’t take no bribes.”

“I do,” the man holds out a hand. His eyes widen. “Let me out. I want another cab.”

John, glad to be rid of him, pays him off and the moment they slow to a stop at an intersection, the man bolts from the car like its on fire. 

Which it is.

Quite literally.

“Ah bloody hell!” The cabbie scrambles out from behind the wheel and John hauls himself out the still flung open passenger door. Flames shoot out of a small gap between the bonnet and the body of the cab and passers-by stop to gawk before someone has the wherewithal to wrestle a spare piece of something from the rubbish bin over the mess, which has precisely the opposite effect of dampening the blaze and instead heightens it. 

“Call 999!” A lady yells to no one in particular.

John, never one to run from danger, finds that there’s a first for everything.

“Sorry, really sorry for all—that,” he shouts to the cabbie, who’s trying to batten down the growing inferno with his cap. A woman in a smart suit takes over and starts directing the action, which saves John his guilt. “I have to go, good luck with—” and he doesn’t bother with finishing the sentiment, because what does it matter anyway. The old man likely can’t hear him over the roar of approaching sirens and there’s a pulse in the back of his throat hammering away: _you’re losing him, find him_.

He turns and sees his old cab-mate hail another taxi further on down the street. The man catches his eye and bestows upon John a rather rude hand gesture before climbing in with a smirk on his face.

“You bastard, fifty quid for nothing!” John shouts at the closed window as the car barrels by. A few more minutes and this road would be partitioned for emergency vehicles. He needs to get out of there, now. Needs to think of a plan. Now. 

 _Shit, the scarf_ — he panics, thinking he’s left it mangled on the seat in the burning cab before remembering it’s wrapped safely round his neck. It smells of Sherlock’s ridiculous aftershave. He rubs the soft fabric between finger and thumb. 

He knows what to do. 

At the end of this street and round the corner of the next one is an Underground station.

London Bridge. 

What if Sherlock’s story of how they met was…a clue?

Canary Wharf or. Or. 

_Bollocks. What was it. Something with a B._

“Bond Street?” John frightens a rather spotty teenager who’s passing him by just at that moment. What a sight he must be, muttering to himself and fingering a scarf. “Sorry.” The teenager gives him a look and moves away down the pavement.

Must’ve been Bond Street. Right? Sherlock reminds John of Bond, in a way: all dashing off  mysterious into the night, leaving a trail of wannabe suitors in his wake. Yeah. Must’ve been Bond Street.

John jogs the rest of the way down the road with not even a glance back over his shoulder, turns the corner and up ahead sees the lights for London Bridge. Floodlights strung off an improvement works crane in the area cast his shadow in flighty, skittery patterns beneath his feet. The tube station is fairly quiet at this time of night, what with commuters mostly tucked back home and the weather being slightly too miserable for most ne’er-do-wells. He threads a finger into his back pocket for his wallet and digs out his card. Takes the stairs two at a time. Sod the escalator. That’s a waiting man’s game. 

John can’t recall the last time he’d run away from a fire into the florescent muteness of a near-empty tube car, but his heart beats as though he’d done the opposite.

Now.

Canary Wharf or Bond Street? 

He’d have to choose a direction. 

Canary Wharf sounds more like where the Foreign Secretary would hold clandestine meetings at weird times on Wednesday nights with people like Sherlock, but on the other hand: Bond. A bit on the nose, maybe but…

He chooses the Jubilee line, makes a turn onto the correct platform. The train pulls up within moments.

He takes a seat across from two women are sat quietly chatting. A man and his daughter trade off taking turns on some game on her phone, and another man reads a crumpled Evening Standard, headphones buzzing on his ears.

Ten minutes and John would be there. 

A small kernel of fear looms up in him as he studies the Jubilee map above the windows. He knows it by heart, he could draw you the damned thing upside down and backwards but at the moment it’s the only thing keeping him calm. Had he blown the entire thing out of proportion? One night, one chance encounter. One kiss. Maybe it was just a good story to tell someday. The scarf, a keepsake he’d eventually take to some charity shop and leave it at that.  

Southwark Station signs appear through the window. 

A few minutes later Waterloo, then across the Thames to Westminster.

He’s being incredibly forward, he realises. Making assumptions and assigning meaning where there could be none. He could get slapped, or laughed at, or reported to the police. (Or snogged again, there was always hope, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on the thought.) 

The father and daughter get off at Green Park, and to replace them come a group of women wearing brightly coloured saris which peek out under their winter jackets. They laugh at something one of them say, elbow her, teasing.

John wraps the scarf tightly round his neck.

One more stop.

“Mind the doors,” and they’re off. 

Should he plan a speech? Probably better to go with the moment. Read the scene. 

That is, he suddenly remembers, if he can figure out where to find it.

 _Bond Street, Bond Street, where would I go on Bond Street. Does he_ live _on Bond Street? Somehow? Haul up in some secret flat tucked behind a vault in Cartier?_ Wouldn’t put it past him, seems like the sort.

“This is Bond Street,” the train announces as it whooshes to a stop and John finds himself on his feet, shuffling out behind people walking agonisingly slowly — people apparently in no rush at all and thrown into his path by the universe for yet another test. John squeezes around a man fighting with two handfuls of oversized luggage and moves as quickly as possible to make his way out of the station.

He feels utterly _consumed_ by this, whatever this is. This stupid, ill-planned quest to return a man’s scarf. He’s no idea what to do next except walk.

Gusts of cold nighttime air blow up the loose bottom of his jacket as he makes his way over to the top of Bond Street. The couture shops, closed at this late hour, glow like jewels behind still lingering passersby. John shrugs the scarf closer round his neck and tucks it up against his earlobes.

_If I was Sherlock, where would I be?_

He looks into shop windows, even stops a few people who look like they live in the area. No one has ever heard of a dark-haired bloke called Sherlock. John walks the length of the street twice, down and up both sides of the pavement, walks it three times. Looks for any sign of a motorcade, police escort, anything. The bloody Foreign Secretary would need that sort of stuff, right? Even to get to a private meeting. He walks it a fourth. A street cleaner has started to give him the side-eye and so John stops in front of a beautiful shopfront with black and white flags printed with _Belstaff_ hung above the doors. 

John rubs his hands over his face.

_What if he lied. Sherlock, what kind of name is that. Bastard’s having me on for a laugh._

_But he kissed me! He wanted to kiss me._

_People kiss all the time and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Doesn’t_ have _to mean anything. Just a friendly, meaningless, unforfuckingettable kiss._

He replays the night over again in his head. Every bit of conversation. Sherlock had left with nothing, had given John nothing, and that’s what he must have wanted.

_Enough. Go home, Watson._

He unwraps the scarf from his neck and drops it into the nearest rubbish bin. Could’ve offered it to the street cleaner, but. He’s done. He needs to be done. This is mad.

The night air prickles at the back of exposed neck. He reaches the end of the street and turns to head back to Bond Street Station with his hands tucked deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched to his ears. 

The sky is cloudless but he can’t see any stars, thanks to London’s demanding, ceaseless glow, its incandescent hubris.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LTDA is the Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association. There is a Belstaff shop on Bond Street. For realsies.


	4. Chapter 4

Bond Street Station squats ahead of him. Best to go home and forget about all of this. Again John pulls out his wallet, fingers his card, makes his way down to the trains. He has a long tube journey ahead of him. Zigzags through the tunnels with his mind half-blank, spots the correct platform ahead.

Then, like a punch to the gut:

_Baker Street._

It was _Baker_ Street, not Bond. Sherlock had said Baker Street, _my flat on Baker Street_.

_I got it wrong._

John, heart in his throat, whips around and sprints back, up the stairs two-by-two, short legs be damned. He races down the pavement dodging the poor street cleaner who by now is quite discomfited seeing John unhesitatingly dig his way into the rubbish bin tattooed with wads of chewing-gum.

“All right, mate?” The man keeps his distance.

“Forgot something,” John mutters, before he pulls the rumpled scarf out, triumphant. “Yes!”

“All sorts,” the cleaner says under his breath. “Takes all sorts.”

Thankfully the scarf is untouched; no one has dumped anything on top of it during its brief sojourn in the bin. John gives it a sniff. Gold-plated sandalwood lingers. He laughs to himself, wraps it once again round his shoulders.

Baker Street is the next stop from here on the Jubilee line. No trouble at all. Just back once again and—

—he feels for his wallet in his pocket.

His fingers press flat against his arsecheek.

“Oh _fucking_ hell.” No, no no no, _must’ve dropped it in the station or, or, someone’s nicked it as I left, just what I needed, yes, perfect, fucking perfect, ta you motherfuck of a universe,_ he thinks as he pats at all pockets, just in case it miraculously jumped elsewhere. He scans the pavement round the bin and up the street some distance. “Fuck.” It’s nowhere to be seen.

The street cleaner watches him, cautious. “Some night, eh mate?”

John huffs out a breath. “Dunno how far it is from here to Baker Street?” 

The man shrugs.

“Walking, I mean,” he says. “How long it’d take to walk there.”

“Oh. Thirty minutes?”

John finds it’s less than twenty if you run the entire way.

He’s still quite fit, or fancies himself so, and manages to shave off a few extra minutes on top of it. Freezing air punches its way into and out of his lungs with each inhale and his chest aches and his feet slam into the pavement in a pattern than makes his mind rattle.

_Why’re you running, Watson, you don’t even know where you’re going._

_What happens if you actually find him._

_This was all for nothing. You’re never going to find him._

_What are you doing._

_What are you doing._

_What are you doing._

He’s sweating, even with the chill of the night, and his armpits are sticky. Damp fabric clings to his lower back.

Each footfall taunts him.

_—what—are—you—do—ing—what—are—you—do—ing—what—are—you—do—ing—_

He turns right, up past Portman Square, and Baker Street looms ahead of him. He swallows, throat dry. Fights the rhythm of self-doubt in his head.

The Gerry Rafferty song wheedles its way in instead.

_Windin’ your way down on Baker Street…light in your head and dead…on your feet…well another crazy day…you’ll drink the night away…and forget about everything…_

Not helpful.

_Way down the street there’s a light in his place….he opens the door he’s got that look on his face…and he asks you where you’ve been…you tell him who you’ve seen…and you talk about anything…_

_Shut up!_

He slows to a stop. 

What is it, nine, ten blocks, roughly? Fuck it. He could do this. He can do this. He will do this. He’s made it this far.

Waitrose, Pret, itsu.

John’s stomach rumbles. He keeps walking. Stops at the NatWest on the corner. Looks for someone to ask.

“Hey, sorry. Hi.” He steps into the path of a harried looking woman bundled round against the cold and carrying her shopping in two hands. “Do you live round here?”

She says nothing and walks faster.

“Sorry, hi, I’m looking for someone,” he tries on a young bloke with a skateboard.

“What’re you offering?” He chins up, looks John over.

“No, not—never mind,” John keeps walking, passes HSBC, Boots. Then Tesco Express, Sainbury’s Local, Chipotle, McDonalds. Nandos. Another Pret. Each place hosting people looking for something to soak up the evening’s alcohol. Something John wishes he had accomplished, as running across London with a few pints of beer on a nearly empty stomach isn’t exactly pleasurable. Starbucks. KFC. Pizza Express. He crosses to the other side of the street.

_Likes a bit of takeaway, does he._

“Sorry, could you help, I’m lost,” John says in a rush to a man coming out of Baker Street Station with an expensive attaché case slung over one shoulder. “Supposed to meet a—friend who lives round here, and I’ve lost the address.”

The man stops, gives him a once-over. “You don’t know your _friend’s_ address _?_ ” He smirks, assuming. 

John presses on. “He’s tall, erm, long—coat, curly dark hair. His name’s Sherlock—”

“Sherlock Holmes.” The man’s face does something complicated, exasperation and apprehension mixed. “The detective.”

John blinks. “Yes, that’s right.”

“You’ve a case for him?”

“What—no, I’m. I’ve been all over, I have this from the pub—” he touches the scarf, _why are you explaining yourself to an utter stranger_ “—anyway, does he live round here?”

“That way, up by the park.” The man points north. He readjusts the bag’s strap on his shoulder. “You know I met him once, on the street. I was hailing a cab, and just from absolutely nowhere he appears and sticks his arm up, says it’s on police business, and that smug _bastard_ climbs straight in—”

“Y’know which building?” John interrupts.

“I’m afraid not, sorry. Anyway—"

But John doesn’t hear the rest. He shouts an obligatory ‘cheers mate’ over his shoulder and strides away.

_He hadn’t lied! Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, is a real man. He’s real._

The tree-lined edge of Regent’s Park sweeps into view. 

He’s half a mind to stand in the middle of the street and shout. At this point it would be as effective, probably. 

The buildings are pock-marked with lit windows and dark spots. Doors open and close, letting in and out those privy to their interiors, providing John mere glimpses of cosy corridors. The energy of the street this far north is far quieter. Is _that_ it? Or perhaps that flat? He hasn’t a clue.

He stops in front of a glossy black door with 221 hung at eye level. Good a place as any, given that he’s almost run out of road and can’t exactly question pigeons in the park. Might as well try one last, to beg another hint from the unassuming tenant if nothing else. He steps onto the bottom of the two steps in front of the door, stretches out a hand, and reaches for the knocker with the tips of his fingers. 

To his surprise, a young woman with light brown hair pulls open the door before he can even so much as touch it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of those takeaway places on the real Baker Street would certainly come in handy for Sherlock. Can’t you just see him tucking into some late-night KFC... lol.


	5. Chapter 5

“Were you coming?” she asks without preamble. The mobile in her hand beeps four chimes in a row. “I don’t have your contact details. Sorry, what was it?” Her eyes pin him backwards. 

“…Sorry?” John’s not sure what’s happening.

“Mr. Holmes never lets on when some of the field agents might attend. It always throws me for a loop at the last,” the woman attends to her phone and taps out responding texts with perfectly manicured fingernails. She looks gorgeously bored. “Were you with the Liechtenstein team?”

This is a lot for John to register at once. “Liechtenstein? But you said…Mr. Holmes.”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes,” she repeats, as though John is a small child or a dog.

“He’s here?” John shifts his feet and points at the scarf. “I’ve been running—I’ve brought this for him, he left it in the pub.”

She glances up at him for barely a moment to register the scarf. Looks down again. “No.”

John thinks perhaps she’s misunderstood. “No, he left it earlier tonight. In that pub down by London Bridge, whatever it’s called.”

“I highly doubt Mr. Holmes has ever left anything in a pub, much less has he ever set foot in one.” She sends another text. “He’s not the pub type. I see him home most evenings.”

_Oh._

_Polite euphemism._

“Oh.” John’s chest falls. “Mr. Holmes doesn’t live here, then.”

“God, no.” She laughs, looks up at him, then past his shoulder as her eyes widen. “Shit, the car’s here early.” On her stiletto heels she pushes past John, shuts the door behind her, and clenches her mobile in the same hand she uses to wave at the driver of the black Jaguar now pulled up and idling along the kerb. “Daniel!” She shouts at the closed window. “I said 22.30! Go round the corner for two minutes!” The man who could only be Daniel rolls down the window. A professionally restrained but subtly heated chat commences. John watches blank-brained for a few moments until the woman returns, apparently having won the confrontation as the Jaguar pulls off again. She manoeuvres around him and opens the door, pauses. 

“If you’re needing an appointment with Mr. Holmes, you’ll have to try later. They’re quite busy.”

“I don’t need an appointment, just a moment—”

“Have a nice evening,” and she shuts the door in his face.

John feels utterly defeated. He plops down, unthinking, onto the top step.

To have come this far and still miss: well it meant something. The bloke at Baker Street Station was wrong. The universe was right. They weren’t supposed to meet again. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but how much can one man take? And for what? He thumbs into his pocket for his mobile. He has to get cash somehow to get home. Walking would take an age and he’s plum out of energy. There’s a chance a busker might take pity on him, or. He doesn’t know anyone in the area but maybe he could find a way to —

“Pardon me, sir.” 

The door behind him has opened and he hadn’t even heard it. John scrambles to his feet and turns.

The Foreign Secretary is waiting patiently to place his foot where John’s arse has just been warming the step.

“Sorry,” John chokes out. “Sorry.” He moves automatically to the side and presses himself up against a wrought iron railing. The Secretary, his security detail, and a small entourage of staff move out of the doorway just as the black Jag returns and glides gracefully to a stop in front of the building. Like a well-oiled machine they move him into the car. Two other Jaguars appear from seemingly nowhere, into which the rest of the team climb, and the vehicles resume places in front of and behind the appointed one carrying the Secretary. They’re off in a flash. 

John wonders if he’s started to hallucinate. It’s been that kind of an evening.

“Beautifully done, Anthea,” says a tall, well-heeled man with a genteel air about him who appears on the doorway step. The woman follows at his back. “Remember to add Daniel to the diary for Argentina. He was exactly on the mark this evening.”

She rolls her eyes behind him and says nothing. Another sleek black car pulls up to the kerb as if magicked there. Careful not to press the tip of his umbrella onto the pavement, the man holds open the door for her before walking around to the other side to open the rear passenger door. 

Just before he gets in he looks up and locks eyes on John. Gives him a look.

Something… _similar_ ….

“He’s free now, or just about, if you’re going in,” the man says to John, casual, almost. Gives him another look. Arches an eyebrow. “You’ve worked hard for it.” Without another word, he climbs into the car. They speed away.

This is the strangest night of John’s life.

They’ve left the door open, which allows golden light from the foyer to spill out into the street. John sucks in a breath. He’s totally unsure of who actually lives here, though it seems none of the parties who’ve recently left it do, or what’s just happened, but he feels like a kid opening the Wardrobe and glimpsing the otherworldly glow of Narnia. Except the opposite, he supposes, as it’s cold out here and—

He hears footsteps just inside.


	6. Chapter 6

Two sets of footsteps. And a familiar voice.

“—offered me a position in Rotterdam, but naturally my brother insists on tailing me like I’m the first trolley of plum puddings at his idiot club.”

_Sherlock._

The other person laughs. “Heard they’ve got excellent puds in Rotterdam, actually.” A deep voice, masculine. Oddly enough: also familiar. 

John presses back against the railing, a perfect viewpoint to see the man step out onto the pavement. He recognises him at once.

‘ _Is this seat taken?_ ’ he’d asked, the handsome man with dark eyes and a steel-cut jaw, as he’d put his hand on the nondescript spare chair at their table.

The same man who happens to be the man standing before him now.

The man from the pub.

Sherlock _had_ found someone he’d wanted to meet again, take home even. It just wasn’t John.

Unfortunately before John has the presence of mind to leave before being noticed, Sherlock himself appears on the step, skipping the bottom one to land next to the man. Backlit by the light from the entrance hall he’s striking: hands on his hips, marble-carved. He and the man from the pub both spot John at nearly the same moment. 

“Oh," the man says, surprised. “Hi.”

“John.” Sherlock breathes into the word. His pale bright eyes collect John, wrap him up.

John has no idea what to do or say.

A bus lumbers by along the street behind them. The light comes on in the upper storey flat above the shop across the way and a bundled-up girl, her hand gripped in her mother’s, skirts around their awkward triangle on the pavement with barely a glance. She must think they’re just another group of mates saying goodnights before parting ways. Nothing unusual at all.

John registers none of this, because even though he’d met Sherlock earlier on this evening, and they’ve kissed (twice, if you count the cheek John’d landed), this feels like seeing each other for the first time. He can’t quite turn his head or shift his glance. Not that he’s about to try. Inconsequential moments fill our lives and John knows this isn’t one of them.

Another beat of silence passes between the three men before John gets his wits about him. 

Blinks and shakes his head. 

“Hi. Sorry. Hi,” John turns to acknowledge the pub man, looks back to Sherlock. “I. You forgot this in the pub before.” He unwinds the scarf from around his neck, careful not to ball up the fabric. He offers it to Sherlock. “I didn’t realise—” He clears his throat. “Sorry to interrupt.” He suddenly feels uncomfortable, deflated, weirdly desperate. _Start again._ “I thought. Sorry.” 

Sherlock takes the scarf. “Thank you,” he says, carefully.

“I misunderstood,” John looks between Sherlock and the pub man, implying that they don’t need to imply anything to him.

“No,” Sherlock says in a low voice. “You understood exactly.” He sounds…pleased, somehow.

 _God,_ John thinks. Sherlock’s cheeks are a bit pinked up from the cold. _Is his mouth pinked up too? From all the snogging with pub man?_ He feels jealous and small and he hates it. That’s the last thing he wants to feel about Sherlock.

“I was just leaving, mate,” the man says to John. He starts to shoulder his way out of there.

“I was—” John stops, but then can’t stop, feels wild, has to continue. He looks back to Sherlock. “I’d been—I lost my wallet earlier—never mind—” he must get the words out, sod if the pub man is stood there or not, sod if they’d just had a brilliant fuck and John was ruining the afterglow, he has to say it, it’s now or never, “—it’s just I was thinking—”

_About nothing other than you and it’s driving me mad?_

_That I’d like to go on a proper date?_

_About your mouth on my mouth?_

_That I can’t say any of that out loud?_

“—how you’d be missing your scarf.” It sounds lame the moment it leaves his mouth. “So. Just. Wanted to make sure you…got it back."

Pub man eases away. “See you later, Sherlock.”

Sherlock doesn’t acknowledge the man. Doesn’t look at him, doesn’t watch him walk away.

John feels tugged out and raw. Utterly exposed. They’re alone now. Sherlock has said nothing and John stands down the pavement from him, battered by the wind. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your date. Sorry.” He takes a step back, raises his hands in defeat, and dips his chin to nod a goodbye. “Night then.” He means to turn around. He means to start walking. He means to go home and leave this whole evening to wither in his memory.

He can’t.

Sherlock reacts as if John had snapped his fingers in his face. A little furrow appears between his eyebrows before he blinks it away. “It wasn’t a date,” he says, a little too loudly.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m pretty sure it was plum puddings Mycroft gorged himself on in TAB, no?


	7. Chapter 7

“Oh.”

“God no.” Then realising— _not because of_ —“No. I’m not his date.”

John takes a step forward, back. Forward again. Oscillates. “He winked at you, at the pub.”

“James was undercover,” Sherlock says quickly.

John nods, unsure. “Ah. Right.”

“It was a sting, a set-up for a Bulgarian drug runner particularly keen on that cramped little pub, god knows why,” Sherlock sighs the last part under his breath. “Months’ effort ruined by that dreadful woman.”

“Gemma.”

“Gemma.” Sherlock glances down, up again, pauses. “And you.” He looks boyish and shy with his hands balled behind his back, chest pressed forward and shoulders rounded. A mischievous smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Knew you’d turn up.”

“Right,” John breathes out on a laugh for lack of anything better to say. He can’t think for the racing of his thoughts. He feels like a telly antenna out of sorts. He laughs again. “Christ.”

Then.

_Oh._

“Oh g—never mind. I get it.”

“It?”

“I’m a fool.”

“Most people are,” Sherlock sniffs against a gust of cold wind. “Probability is remarkably high according to available data.”

“No, it’s—” John says, half-disbelieving, half-testing his theory. “You left it there on purpose.”

Sherlock quirks an eyebrow, cautious, patently irreproachable. 

“The scarf. You left it.”

“Impossible.”

“You knew I’d—” John pauses, “that I’d—” The words clog in his throat.

Sherlock takes a step toward him. His gaze, magnetic, pulls at John. His words are quiet. Slow. “…I knew that you’d _what.”_

Dark eyes on a dark street and John’s warm.

The wind blows and John forgets. 

The world spins off its axis and John forgets. 

He swallows. “That I’d—”

_—stop at nothing to find you._

“Oi! Sherlock!” interrupts a raspy shout from far away.

The moment shifts and dissipates like smoke.

Sherlock wraps the newly-returned scarf round his neck and reaches past the door into 221’s entry to snatch his coat and shrug it on. John manages to look away, down the street. A silver-haired man dressed in a tousled jacket is charging up the pavement and tucking a badge away into a pocket. An unmarked car with its lights off idles further along down the road.

“Ah. The Bulgarian,” Sherlock says without acknowledging the approaching man. He digs his phone out of a pocket and thumbs at the lockscreen.

“…Sorry?”

“Sherlock!” the shouty silver fox tries again.

_Doesn’t sound like a Bulgarian accent. Rather like an irritated Essex steeped in London._

“The Bulgarian,” Sherlock repeats. “You met him earlier this evening.” He barely pauses for John to demonstrate a remarkable lack of recall before holding up his mobile and showing him a photo sent in a text message. “Boris Iyalko Petrov. Runner for the largest drug syndicate out of Eastern Europe, wanted by Interpol since 2007,” Sherlock’s tone is matter-of-fact. “The man with the pint, the one stood near you wanting the newspaper. Why did he want the paper, you ask? He needed every fifth page, fourth paragraph, third sentence, second word, first letter.”

John thinks he follows. “…Drop codes in the Times.”

Sherlock’d opened his mouth to keep going but John has struck him silent. He stutter-blinks but doesn’t manage a word before the shouty man reaches where they’re stood on the pavement outside 221. 

“You coming?” the man asks Sherlock as he shoves bare hands into pockets and dips his chin into the open v collar of his jacket. “Preferably before my bollocks freeze clean off.”

Sherlock says nothing. Wrinkles his nose a bit.

“Eight days and paperwork’s still on my desk from the Chambers case. Chief Superintendent is up my arse about it and now I’ve got this tosser to deal with,” he pulls out a hand to jab a thumb back toward the unlit idling car. 

John can just make out the silhouette of a head. Must be in the back seat. _Petrov._

“Tomorrow.”

“You said that seven days before yesterday.”

“ _Tomorrow_ , Lestrade.”

The policeman, evidently called Lestrade, notices John for the first time. “Who’s this?”

“He’s—“

“I’m his—” John starts. For the second time in as many hours John is forced to consider an easy lie or the unplumbed depths of truth.

_I’m his stranger?_

_I’m his boyfriend?_

_He’s my strange boyfriend?_

John settles on: “I’m with him.”

“With him?” Disbelief falls short of description. Lestrade looks from Sherlock to John to Sherlock to John and back again. “ _With_ him. With,” he points, “ _him.”_ He accentuates the phrase like it’s a novelty.

Which, apparently, it is.

“What is it with people not believing— _yes_ , with him,” John says.“Who are you?”

“Shocked, more like it.” 

“Ignore him, John,” Sherlock says. “He’s an idiot.”

John eyes the pocket which is surely home to the man’s Met badge. Strong thing to say in front of Scotland Yard’s finest. 

Lestrade looks completely unfazed. “It’s now, Sherlock, or a drugs bust.”

Sherlock begins a yawn. “Have you forgotten that bullying me _won’t work_.”

“A real one.” Lestrade crosses his arms over his chest. “Now. With your brother.”

“Oh bugger off, Lestrade,” There’s something about Sherlock’s posture that goes on defence, that tells John the threat isn’t empty. He clicks off the lockscreen and tucks his mobile back inside his coat. “I’ve caught you a criminal.”

“You mean I’ve caught the criminal you let get away.”

“It was my fault,” John pipes up, unheard. 

Definitely unheard. 

Quiet even, as human voices can often be, especially up against the sound of glass shattering.

“What the— _bloody fucking hell_ —”

The car, moments before tidily idling unlit, is now quite lit, considering the patterned glow of its headlamps flashing on-and-off in time with the blaring alarm. 

The back left passenger window lies in shards on the floor and the blur of Petrov — short, slight, definitely the man wanting the Times from the pub, John can see — approaches the corner of the building one-hundred metres away and disappears from view. Still cuffed, arms pinned behind his back, running wonky like a madman.

_This won’t be hard at all._

In an instant all three men give chase: Lestrade down the centre of the street, shouting profanities; Sherlock down the line of the near buildings, coat flailing behind him like a thousand-pound cape; and John down the far side of the street, ready to cut the man off should he try to double back and slip away unnoticed. 

“Out of the way!” John shouts as his feet pound the pavement. Passersby scatter like dropped seeds.

“Sherlock!” Lestrade, even more disheveled from his brief sprint, briefly stops at his unmarked and wrenches open the driver’s door to radio for backup. There’s an unspoken question that hovers in the beat of silence as the two men make eye contact.

“Fine!” Sherlock turns round the corner and dashes away down Melcombe Street after Petrov. John watches him go, pausing for a moment before he too turns and runs the other direction, north, up toward the park.

_Maybe that’s that. Good luck._

John’s heart flutters a secret pulse in his chest.

_Catch me a criminal, Sherlock Holmes._

Someone’s shouting up ahead. He sprints across Park Road and the Outer Circle and into the dim glow of Regent’s Park, stopping to listen at the edge of Boating Lake. John can’t make out the words, or even where exactly the owner of them is stood, but there’s definitely some dispute nearby. Had Petrov already come all the way up Glentworth and beat him into the Park? If John was forging an escape, it’s likely what he’d do. He quiets his breathing. Listens. 

“Get off, get off!” a man yells. “G’off me!” Rustling. The sounds of fighting. Bodily contact.

John runs.

West, sounds like, toward the—no, more northwest, along the edge of the Park. He nearly slips along the wet-slick ground but catches himself just in time. His heartbeat thuds in his ears.

Hadn’t sounded like Sherlock, or even that police officer…Lestrade. John hadn’t recognised the voice at all, but he can’t be sure that Petrov wouldn’t try to harm someone else, some innocent person on a late night walkabout. Sherlock didn’t say Petrov was dangerous but anyone who’s been wanted by Interpol since 2007 and hasn’t been caught is likely to not _not_ be dangerous.

“Help!”

John finally sees the struggle up ahead. Two men, neither of whom the man he’s expecting.

“You! Stop!” he shouts at them. He reaches an arm back, pushes away the hem of his jacket to feel with the other hand for the gun tucked into his waistband—except—it’s not there—he’s left it at home—he’s left it—he’s come from the clinic, that’s right—he’s not armed—and then—a woman’s voice—“Police!”— _thud_ —and he’s tackled from behind. He hits the ground hard, face smashed into the gritty pavement. Before he can move John’s arms are tugged up behind his back, wrists clenched together in the stretched-open grasp of a very strong female officer.

“You’re under arrest,” she huffs.

“For what?!” he manages.

“Drug-running, for a start.” She slips handcuffs on round his wrists. “How’d you get your cuffs off?”

“I’m not Petrov!”

“Prove it,” she says as she locks the cuffs closed. “You match the description.” 

“I’m not—I’m not _elderly_ , for christssake—“ Belly down, John rocks his body to try and push her off his arse so he can reach for his wallet with a handcuffed hand. “I’m John Watson, my military ID’s in my pocket, let me get my wallet—”

_Fuck._

“You’re coming with me,” she announces. Triumphant.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Donovan? Receiving?” the radio clipped low onto her shoulder statics to life and interrupts her recitation of his rights. She leaves John pinned to the pavement with one hand as she reaches up to press the button with the other.

“I said I’m _John Watson_ , Captain, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, G bloody P at a shite surgery in Newington,” John groans into the ground.

“Receiving loud and clear. Got’ im, boss,” she says into the radio, ignoring John.

 _Not loud and clear._ He forces his head to the side and continues, “Fucking hell I’m John Watson, I lost my idiot wallet looking for Sherl— _Petrov_ —chasing Petrov—for fucks’ sake, _I’m not Petrov_!”

“Bring him in, Donovan,” the radio voice says through static. 

Familiar. John is beyond done with familiar voices. 

Sounds awfully like what was his name…Lestrade.

“Copy. En route now.” She — Donovan, presumably —lets the radio go mute.

John tries anyway. “Lestrade?! Oi Lestrade!” No response but silence. He glares up at her and wrestles a bit beneath her weight. “Happy?!”

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“If you call arresting the wrong man doing your job.”

She glares back, eyes narrowed. “Try that again and you’ll regret resisting lawful arrest, _sir_.”

“It’s _Captain_ , and I’ve the right to resist an unlawful arrest!”

“Yeah if I had a penny, mate...” Donovan eases John up to his knees, then his feet. Utterly furious, he follows automatically. He’s used to this, this type of manoeuvring from prone to standing with his hands behind him with his wrists tied. Military training sticks with you, it comes back when you need it just like riding a bicycle. Even when you’ve been wrongfully arrested: once a soldier, always a soldier. _Anyone could tell you that_ , John thinks. He spits out something stuck to his tongue, hopes it was grass.

 _Speaking of anyone_.

_If anyone could get me out of this._

“Sherlock Holmes,” John says. It’s not really a question. His nose smarts where it rammed against the pavement.

She tenses slightly, but says nothing and leads him away from the edge of the park toward a marked car parked further up with its lights flashing. Whoever was engaged in fisticuffs a few moments before is well gone now, most likely sprinted off at the first sight of Donovan. So much for good samaritan-ing his way out of the horrors of the evening. Can’t even manage not to get arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.

They reach the car and she pulls open the rear door.

“Sherlock Holmes. Works for the Met,” John repeats, this time with her hand on his head as she guides him in.

“ _Works_ ,” she laughs. “You one of the freak’s freaks then?” She shuts the door, goes around to the driver’s seat, and re-inserts the keys into the ignition. This is a proper police car, John realises. No way he could punch out the window with a precisely aimed kick. She pulls out into traffic. “There’s always a few as obsessed with him as he is with himself.”

John feels his gut clench. “He’s not like that.”

The police car’s siren is silent but the lights flash in blue patterns over every building they pass.

“No, he’s worse,” Donovan glances at him in the rearview. “He’s a bloody psychopath.”

“He’s not.”

“You don’t know him.” She picks up speed. 

John’s blood heats.

“No, y _ou_ don’t know him,” he snaps. He knows he sounds like a petulant primary schooler, but he can’t be fucking arsed at the moment, because if there’s something else this night doesn’t need, turns out it’s the man he’s newly besotted with being raked through the mud by a presumed colleague. “You don’t know him like I do.”

_And I’ve known him for…how long?_

_An hour?_

“Is that right,” Donovan mutters as she reaches for her radio, presses on the button, “Donovan for dispatch, heading for New Scotland Yard with suspect in custody,” she says, nonchalantly, as if all of this didn’t matter at all, as if this is just a minor part of a funny story that John will obligingly repeat someday over a round of pints at the pub.

No.

This is not a funny story. 

Like a lit match laid to a wick, the realisation consumes John all at once. This is _the_ story. 

“Copy, Donovan, standby,” a different voice answers. Scratchy static for a moment and then, “NSY processing prepare for reception.”

_This is the story of how we met._

A laugh surprises its way out of his belly. 

Every little thing: A crap day at the surgery. A mad stranger. A kiss. Two kisses, really.

A separation. A realisation. A chase and a finding and a losing.

Sherlock Holmes. _There’s something about you already in me._

_…How?_

John sucks in a breath, holds it. Counts to ten. Calms the clamouring in his blood. Breathes out. 

That’s it. Next time he sees him, next time…next time he’ll say something. If there is a next time.

London whirs by, dressed in an artificially bright-blue blur. The streets aren’t empty but late night stragglers are sparse, most well bundled against the cold save for the few carousers who are too pissed to contemplate dressing for the temperature as they shuffle out of pubs to light cigarettes with shaking hands. 

John’s window fogs a bit from the heat of his breath, which obscures his view. He finds he doesn’t mind much. 

After a few silent minutes the police radio garbles a transmission and Donovan asks for clarification. Some of it he can make out, as the lingo is close enough to signal codes from his Kandahar days, but then his efforts start to stir up things he’s tried too hard to bury. He wonders what happened to Petrov, or if anyone’s caught up with him. Nothing indicates as such on the radio. Probably a lost cause. 

Finally the building on Victoria Embankment looms ahead, the rotating sign frost-tipped in the wintery night, and John is removed from the car, hastily searched, processed, sent to a room to wait, then another, then another, then put alone into a compact holding cell. Donovan disappears without another word. Abandoned to the tick-tock of the system, his protests fall on a series of mindless, disbelieving ears. From one anonymous custody officer to the next, he’s passed around with promises and nothing comes of it.

No sight of Lestrade.

No sight of Sherlock.

John looks around his little windowless cell. He slumps his shoulders where he’s sat on the thinly padded metal cot and lets his head fall back against the wall, thinks over the evening, thinks about his peripatetic crisscross of London, thinks of the way Sherlock’s mouth had pulled up at the corner after he’d handed him back his scarf. 

_He’d wanted to say something as well. I think._

Someone brings him a small cup of water. Parched, he gulps it in one go. 

“Could I have more?” 

“One per person.” The custody suite aide closes the cell door, leaves him alone again to think morbid thoughts in his Dickensian gaol. 

He sighs.

 _The story of how we met_. 

He shifts his shoulders, feels for the watch that’s been removed from his wrist. He thinks of all the ways he can’t force time to pass. He wishes he could remember the taste of Sherlock’s lips, but he can’t, there’s nothing, the kiss was too quick, too monumental to capture and keep and instead the stale taste of beer and chips lingers in his mouth, coats the hollow of his soft palate. 

_What the hell are you thinking, Watson. Got yourself arrested for nothing. It’s a Wednesday night! You’ve got work tomorrow! You’ve a proper boring life to lead! You can’t be doing this._

_It’s him. He…_

He wets his lips, worries the bottom one between his teeth. 

_Excuses, that’s all. Twice he’s run away from you._

That settles in his gut like a stone.

_Fine. Whatever he wants, then. I’m here if he wants it…this. Me._

He sighs again. Crosses his legs at the ankle. Tries to relax. Clearly, getting arrested had not been on his to-do list for the evening, certainly not right after ‘get utterly sloshed,’ and the mix-up could still come with some serious consequences.

Best not relax too much.

He wrinkles his nose, which still hurts, and rubs at his thigh, which doesn’t, but it’s a nervous tic he can’t seem to shake from his army days, so he does it until he can get his thoughts to stop spinning and then finally, barely closes his eyes — it must be pushing the wee hours now — before a loud bang startles him, followed by a roaring voice once again familiar but this time all too welcome.

“ _What_ —”

_S h e r l o c k_

“—have you _imbeciles—”_

_S h e r l o c k_

“—done with my boyfriend?!” 

John’s pulse jumps. He lifts his head away from the wall.

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

“Who?”

“My _boyfriend,_ ” Sherlock repeats as he charges down the corridor and into the reception lobby, or at least seemingly does so, from what John can gather via his non-viewpoint behind a barred door. “ _John Watson,_ the man you _idiots_ have arrested for the commission of a crime of which he is _incapable_ —”

“No visitors are allowed in temporary holding, sir,” a woman interrupts (the custody processing officer, John remembers her from earlier). An evening of exasperation weighs on her threadbare voice. “Boyfriend or not.”

“Wrong. Boyfriends are allowed.”

John is wide awake. John will never fall asleep again.

“Not even spouses are allowed without—sir, stop it! Stop touching that.”

A clanking sound: mysterious.

Sherlock lets a solid space drop between the words. “Boyfriend. John Watson. Where is he.”

“I need your _name_ , sir.” Strong stuff, this woman. Deceptively threadbare. “I’m not about to disclose custody information to a stranger. Data Protection laws and that.”

“What _difference_ does it make!”

“What difference?” She’s steely now. “I’d say between getting what you want and getting yourself arrested.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

_Christ._

“Last. Chance. _Your name_ , sir, plus proof you know the suspect _and_ that he’s requested contact with you, or I will happily have a custody officer escort you to a holding cell on the opposite end of the corridor.”

Sherlock cuts through her threat. “Sherlock Holmes. John Watson. He wants me. I can prove it.”

_Jesus bloody Christ more like it—_

John realises he’s been holding his breath. He should call out, test if they can hear him, prove to her that he knows Sherlock, he does, he really does know him. He requests contact, of course he requests contact, because he, he does—he wants—him—

The dam breaks. “Right,” she says pointedly as she click-clacks on her keyboard. “The chap in 10 says that he’s John Watson but we haven’t done prints yet and he’s no ID on him.”

“I’ve proof of his identity.”

“He said he’s lost his—”

“Wallet,” Sherlock finishes. A thud, or, more like the sound of cheap leather smacking against cheap laminate. “There’s your proof. Take me to him.”

 _How?!_ John can barely register this impossibility.

“ID or not, I can’t let you in without more than this.”

“I’ve the right to see him!”

“You haven’t,” she sighs.

“Oh, but I have, _Margaret_ , because why does this—” Sherlock’s voice barely pauses long enough for John to just make out a flourish of something papery-sounding being produced, “—give me special dispensation?”

She must be looking it over as the lobby’s gone quiet. After what feels like an age, she reads aloud in a monotone: “Sherlock Holmes is legally allowed to visit John Watson and/or have him freely removed from the custody of the Metropolitan Police upon request."

“See.”

She continues. “Signed, Courtesy of Gavin Lestrade, I’m Probably a Sergeant, DI is Pushing It?” 

“Obviously.”

“Sorry…did you _make_ this? This isn’t even on the correct letterhead—”

“Wrong. Your department uses it starting tomorrow.”

“—and no one called Gavin Lestrade works here. Do you mean Greg?”

“I meant Lestrade, I mean, _he_ meant Lestrade—” Sherlock begins to falter and then stops. Starts again like a car’s engine revving: “It just so happens there’s a funny little law in the United Kingdom which stipulates that under the written orders of a ranked Metropolitan police representative any private individual is allowed not only to visit their significant other when under arrest and held in custody for suspicion of the commission of a crime but that the significant other also may offer due aid in the course of receiving utterly _reprehensible_ personal treatment not to mention influence the likelihood of his filing a formal complaint against the bevy of your _moron_ colleagues who’ve arrested him without proper cause which he would undertake most likely with the assistance and legal provisions of none other than Mycroft Holm—ahh! _Sally_.”

“Don’t listen to him, Margaret, he’s having you on. He _lies_.” A new voice — Sally _Donovan_ , the cop who’d arrested John, must be—comes echoing down the corridor.

“And I was under the impression you were able to distinguish between an army doctor from Chelmsford and a Bulgarian drug-runner, and yet you continue to amaze me with your incompetence, Sally. What’s next, taking down the Queen next time you’re to give an ASBO to a drunken youth,” Sherlock sneers.

“He matched _your_ perp description, Sherlock,” Sally says, indignant. John imagines her arms are crossed over her chest, but he can’t be sure of course. He thinks again to shout out, but forgets because—

_Hang on. What?_

Sherlock stutters though this realisation as well. “Oh so you just, you just—indiscriminately listen to what I say? Choose when it suits?”

“What did you expect when I asked you to describe him!”

Sherlock barrels ahead like a train. “Well perhaps I missed the context when you said ‘ _Sherlock, describe your man_ ’!”

John’s heart pummels against the cage of his ribs.

Seemingly so does everyone else’s because a few beats of silence fill the lobby. 

“What other context…” Sally starts, then understands. “Ah. So in response to a critical level ATL you described your _boyfriend_ instead of Petrov, who’s back on the streets now thanks to you being a massive prat.”

“Goodness,” Margaret interjects.

“It was _Lestrade,_ the idiot, Petrov kicked out the window of the unmarked—that’s not the point!”

“Exactly,” Sally says.

“Don’t be ridiculous."

“What’s the point, what are you always going on about, Sherlock…details?” She mimics his tone. “Details are important, details tell you _everything._ ”

“Ooh what talent, do you do impressions?” Sherlock snaps.

“ _Only lies have detail_ ,” she continues. “And I don’t believe this detail, not a bit.” Her voice gets louder as she speaks, she must be walking toward John’s holding cell. “How does someone like you get a boyfriend, Sherlock, when no one can stand the sight of you for—”

An electronic sound, a click, and to John’s surprise his cell door opens.

“—more than a minute.”

An irritated Sergeant Sally Donovan appears in the doorway, flanked close behind by Margaret the processing officer, and lastly Sherlock: beautiful, tousled, slightly feral, chest heaving, curls askew. His scarf hangs long and nearly unwound round his neck.

He looks over at John. He blinks.

John blinks.

Is it possible to fall in love at first sight with the same person more than once?

A million things to say and John could kick himself, because instead of what he wants to say, instead of what he’s thought all night of saying, he says to Sherlock the first words that bubble up to the surface. 

“You found me.”

“You found me first.”

Are other people there? John can’t remember. He looks to his wallet grasped in Sherlock’s fist. “How in the _hell_ did you find that?”

“Homeless network.”

“Homeless what?”

Margaret gestures at him to come forward. “Right, Mr Watson—”

“Doctor,” he corrects as he stands.

“Captain.” So does Sherlock. 

“John H. Watson?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“This _is_ you…?” she says as she gives him a once-over and squints at his military ID, which Sherlock must’ve slipped out of his wallet. 

“Yes.”

Sally’s arms are crossed, just as he’d predicted. “You do know him, then.” She lifts her chin and jerks her head toward Sherlock, intense eyes trained on John’s face.

“‘Course, he’s my partner. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Your partner.”

“Romantic partner,” he clarifies just as Sherlock says, “Boyfriend,” and tucks John’s wallet into the pocket of his jacket.

Sally actually laughs. 

“And you not only request but welcome contact with this man?” Margaret asks John. 

“Yes.”

_This is utterly, wonderfully mad._

Margaret hands John his ID and sighs. “In the absence of a marriage licence or joint lease or the like, what we normally do under these circumstances is to confirm your relationship though a short verbal or written interview—”

“We’ll do it,” Sherlock interrupts just as John’s heart sinks.

_There’s no way we’ll convince them, it’s impossible—sure we can knock off squiffy Gemma in a dim pub but actual, real police officers? Impossible—_

“Peckham. He’s lived there for a year,” Sherlock starts, “and he’s moving house at the weekend.”

_God._

_“_ Yeah,” John tries. His heart is a hammer. “To, erm, Baker Street. 221.”

“B,” Sherlock adds. “With me.”

“Yes, let’s wait for the interview, I’ll be asking you questions about co—”

“—habitation, commingling of lifestyles, signs of intimacy,” Sherlock rattles off, then pauses. He tucks his hands behind his back, lifts his chin, sniffs nonchalantly. “…I assume."

Margaret looks between them. “Right. Good. The written version’s shorter. If you can prove you know each other, and DI Lestrade, _Mr Holmes_ ,” she gives Sherlock a look, “then we’ll release Doctor Watson.” She adjusts her short blond fringe and tucks a stray strand of hair over an ear. “Follow me.”

Sally laughs again. “Better have a quick brush-up on who does what—”

“Oh come off it.”

John, who’s said nothing to Sally since their abrupt reacquaintance, simply nods a nondescript _fuck you_ _very much_ in her general direction and follows Margaret and Sherlock down the corridor.

Margaret opens the door to a small room, partitioned down the centre by an opaque screen with a small table and accompanying chair placed on each side. They settle in without making a sound. John tries to catch Sherlock’s eye but finds it to be impossible, and certainly even more so once they take their positions on opposing sides of the screen.

_We’re fucked. She’ll figure out we’re faking and we’ll both get arrested for lying to the police. What a cracking idea — add a little ‘perverting the course of justice’ to the mix to make this night even better._

She rummages in a cupboard for a few pieces of paper and some biros.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions and you’ll write your responses there,” she says as she hands them each a matched pair. “Then we’ll compare.”

God, John wishes he could see Sherlock. Sherlock, who’s said nothing since they sat, since they started walking down the corridor. Sherlock, inevitably and inestimably an enigma.

“What year did you first meet?” Margaret begins.

John wishes he hadn’t agreed to this. John wishes he’d never run after Petrov, never let Sherlock slip away down the other street, never let Lestrade interrupt their conversation, never let this turn into such a cock-up, that he would’ve done anything else instead. He should’ve shoved them both into the entry of 221 Baker Street and locked the door behind them.

John hasn’t a clue what Sherlock will write down. Should he try to guess what Sherlock would try to guess he would guess at? His head hurts.

“Next question.”

 _Bloody hell_ he hasn’t written anything yet—

“What did you do to celebrate Mr Holmes’ last birthday?” Margaret and her death-knell of all of John’s last hopes.

_Bollocks_

John scribbles down a year at random and racks his brain. 

_What would we do to celebrate his birthday…he seems rather unconventional…erm…not show tickets, surely…a quiet night in? A murder?_

_…where did that come from_

_Well he is a detective after all_

_Murders have to be rather exciting, I mean, strictly from an investigative viewpoint_

_He’d probably like a good case, something to really sink his—_

“Next question.”

John can hear Sherlock writing on the other side of the partition. He chicken-scratches his own answer and waits for the next incoming opportunity to feel like an idiot. Hopefully his stereotypically terrible doctor’s handwriting will count against him in this case and Sherlock will forgive him for playing up the “sorry, what did I write again? can’t remember” aspect of his dismal failure.

She asks a few questions in quick succession: What is the name of the bank Mr Watson uses for his accounts? Are Mr Holmes’ parents living or deceased? What is Mr Watson’s mobile number? Does Mr Holmes own a car?

John, thank Christ, knows his own bank and his own bloody mobile number. The others not as much. At least it’s one or the other. Alive or dead, yes or no. Straightforward isn’t it, one or the other…

“You’ve said you’re moving in together at the weekend. What’s the colour of your kitchen curtains?”

He tries to stall. “Kitchen curtains?”

“Kitchen curtains,” Margaret confirms.

_Bugger this all to hell._

Sherlock snickers from behind the screen. Had John said that out loud? Under his breath, maybe, sure. 

_Blue yellow orange green paisley rainbow purple what’s that other posh-sounding colour word—liliac?_

“Next question.”

John tries not to panic and writes “don’t have any” in place of a sensible choice of colour.

“If you’re standing at the foot of the bed and facing it, who sleeps on the right side?”

“That’s a bit of a personal question—” John starts, surprising himself. His cheeks, for shame, flush like a nun’s. 

_You snogged a complete stranger tonight and you’re blushing at the thought of sharing a bed? Pull yourself together._

Margaret feigns a smile. “It’s customary for asking couples who cohabitate, Mr Watson. Unless you’re implying that you don’t sleep together.”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business what we do and don’t—”

“Answer the question, love,” Sherlock coos from the other side of the partition, cool as a cucumber.

Margaret clears her throat, smile well gone. “No communicating.”

“Then why aren’t we in separate rooms,” Sherlock shoots back.

“There’s two of you and one of me. Now answer the question.”

“Right.” John looks down at his paper. Sad, suffering, stupid paper. He’d failed them all surely, and he’ll no doubt stay in custody whilst Sherlock’ll be free to flounce out and prowl the streets on the lookout for steelcut-jaw-undercover-pub-guy again. James Nice Cock or whatever his name was.

Margaret prompts him again. “Side of the bed, Mr Watson.”

_Fifty-fifty chance, no other options—well unless we switched I suppose—_

A utilitarian-sounding buzzer rings from somewhere outside their room and Margaret glances down at her wristwatch. “Is it really gone three? Last question, I’m almost off shift,” she says as she rolls her shoulders.

John steels himself.

“Where was your first public kiss?”

“Must say, these questions,” John rubs at his eyebrow.

“That’s the point,” Sherlock says behind the screen as Margaret says, “They’re designed to elicit meaningful memories, which enhances recall.”

“Terrific. Would you like a list of all the places we’ve shagged while we’re at it,” John snaps before he can stop himself.

“Oh, could we—” Sherlock begins.

“Just answer the question.”

John looks down again and thinks.

_Oh._

_Oh!_

_I actually know this one._

He writes his answer. 

Margaret, patient, dutiful, death-knell Margaret, collects their papers and looks them over. A minute passes. Maybe 15 seconds.

She’s quiet.

John swallows.

“Well.” She looks back up at them.

“Well?” He feels like he’s waiting on marks from Olympic judges or something, this is ridiculous.

Margaret smirks. “It appears you’ve got two questions matched….sorry, three.” 

“Two?!” Sherlock pushes up and out of his chair. “Impossible, I deduced at least five—” He grabs the papers out of her hands.

“You’ve clearly failed the interview, you clearly don’t know each other very well, and I’m sorry but Mr. Watson you need to come with me back to the custody suite.” 

Sherlock looks at John.

“And you,” she says to Sherlock, “are under investigation for lying to the police.”

John looks at Sherlock.

_This is it then. The ending to the story of how we met._

Margaret reaches for the door but doesn’t manage it before the handle moves, untouched, beneath her hand. It opens.

“Sherlock! The hell have you been?!”

Lestrade.

Sherlock’s mouth does something funny but before he can say anything Lestrade barges into the room. John slowly stands, unnoticed, and Margaret shuts the door. A shouting match commences. 

Lestrade crosses his arms. “Left me to face the Chief Superintendent alone, that was your plan, was it.”

“ _You_ left Petrov in the unmarked! I had to deal with your staggering ineptitude, as usual.”

“ _Sally_ recovered him.”

“Interesting choice, ‘recovered’. Is that what you’ve taken to calling wrongful arrest?”

“What?”

“Mr Holmes,” Margaret sighs. She’s had quite enough of Mr Holmes.

Sherlock lifts his chin. “She arrested _John_ , Lestrade.” Haughty slips into something more nuanced. “There was a slight…misunderstanding,” he finds his stride again, “but the point is she’s arrested John and through no help from you, the so-called Metropolitan Police have held him as a captive, deprived him of—”

Lestrade finally notices him. John nearly waves. Doesn’t, but nearly.

“—his freedom because once again no one pays any attention to the fact that—”

“Oh.” Lestrade blinks, looks between them. “Oh, _bloody hell_ , you mean—”

“That Petrov’s on his way back to Stara Zagora as we speak. The longer we delay the higher the probability of losing him again—” Sherlock moves to open the door.

_Hang on._

“Do you know me?” John says abruptly to Lestrade. Everyone turns to look at him. “Have we met before?”

Lestrade eyes him. “Did Sally smash your head in, mate?”

“No, I mean. Have we _met_ before?” John repeats. He sets his shoulders, careful to avoid looking at Margaret. 

“Well, sure I suppose.”

Margaret looks between Lestrade and John, then John and Sherlock, then Sherlock and Lestrade. “You suppose or you have, Greg?”

“On Baker Street, yeah.” He shrugs. “You were with Sherlock.”

“And we were—I was _with_ him,” John clarifies.

“Yeah, you were together.” 

“Anyone can be together,” Margaret says.

“But I said—”

“You said together, in a romantic sense, _apparently_ …” Lestrade quirks an eyebrow at Sherlock and shakes his head. “Anyway the hell are we talking about this for, we need to get after Petrov.”

“In a romantic sense,” Margaret repeats.

“Quite romantic.” Sherlock pipes up for the first time, realising what John’s on about.

“Yeah,” John adds. He and Sherlock make eye contact. He nods.

It takes Sherlock two strides to cross the room and kiss him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Sherlock totally made this law up.  
> 2) I think we all know what ASBOs are.  
> 3) This whole testing-the-validity-of-your-relationship thing is also totally unrealistic for these circumstances, but I did have loads of fun reading questions for green card marriage interviews. The kitchen curtains question is real. And also, can I just say…some of the real questions are indeed a bit intimate. Which I suppose is the point.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call this the fic that just won't end...
> 
> The last chapter was getting a bit unruly and waaaay too long so I've decided to split it into two. Or three. We'll see how editing goes ;D
> 
> Thanks for reading!

This kiss is different to the evening’s first in the curious way that it’s exactly the same, save for John’s heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest. 

Not that it hadn’t done that before, he concedes. Rather that the hammering is a bit more pronounced this time around, as he’s more emotionally involved with this go than he was with the first. Perhaps.

The mechanics of the kiss are the same: square on the mouth, Sherlock’s bottom lip pressed solidly against John’s, his top lip just aligned above John’s own. Chaste in a way, but soft and warm and a bit like coming home.

Hell, he’s been through a lot to get to this kiss. 

It feels nice. 

Kissing is nice.

John smells Sherlock’s expensive aftershave not just on the scarf but on the man himself, he can smell the wool of his coat, whatever product he uses in his hair. He feels the press of the tip of Sherlock’s nose just to the left of his, the way one of Sherlock’s hands has come up to the edge of his jawline in a feather-light touch. Done in from running across London, he feels the ache in his back from an unexpected acquaintance with a crap custody cot. He has a headache and a bit of a sour stomach.

He’s midway through a kiss that means something.

Sherlock’s mouth feels, well. Really good. 

His lips are pressed just—how to put it, they’re moving against John’s in such a—a _knowing_ way—how the hell does he know how to kiss John so effortlessly, as though he does it every damn morning with a side of tea and biccies and a ‘what shall we do after I solve this bloody murder, darling’—

Only then does John realise the kiss has ended and Sherlock has pulled back and away.

John’s eyes are still closed. Lips puckered probably, like first-time schoolboy. He sniffs, hard, again aware of the small crowd and blinks open just in time to see Sherlock turn out of the room and shut the door behind him without saying a word.

“Blimey. Well that’s sorted,” Lestrade snorts, looking from John to Margaret and back again.

John moves toward the door. “Hang on—“

_Had it not been good?_

_You idiot._

_It was only for show. To prove something to someone other than me._

"He always leaves, mate,” Lestrade chuckles, then curious, says, “…how long have you two been, uh—”

“Fine.” To John’s relief, Margaret, frustrated and obviously done with The Mystery of the Mismatched Boyfriends, interrupts Lestrade. “Fine. You clearly failed the exam but since the DI here knows you both, or he’s willing to lie for you for some unknown, probably misguided reason, let’s just call this a night.” She picks up the pieces of paper they’d written their responses on and eyes Lestrade, wary of his apparent lack of sound judgment. Lestrade, the charmer, grins. “You’ll be released on the grounds of wrongful arrest,” she says to John in a clipped tone and moves to toss the papers in the rubbish bin.

Lestrade adjusts the front of his shirt, smoothing and tucking it down where its gotten wrinkled. “I’d better sort out Petrov. CS already has my bollocks on a plate.” He pauses. Clears his throat. “What’s a proper goodbye for, John, hm?” He holds out his hand and John shakes it. “Sherlock has a way of turning up. I’ll see you round.” 

John nods, trying to catch the double meaning. Lestrade waves a goodbye at Margaret, opens the door, and leaves.

Margaret stands ready. “Follow me, please, Mr Watson. Back to reception.”

_You should be going after Sherlock. You waited too long after the first time and look what that’s done. Sort things out._

_But._

“Can I just see those, please?”

She rolls her eyes but digs the papers out of the rubbish and hands them to him.

She hadn’t lied.

Three matched answers is all they’d managed.

**Solved a murder.**

**Don’t have any.**

**A pub near London Bridge, the night we met.**

The rest are off, even though Sherlock had thought he’d deduced them. John supposes that for whatever his otherworldly qualities, the man can’t perform magic. By no means could John himself have accurately guessed on everything, it’s just—well he’d thought they’d somehow be able to manage it.

Again: wrong.

“Right, thanks.” He lets them drop into the bin.

Margaret gestures for John to follow her out. She looks grim. “May I offer my apologies on behalf of all of us at the Met, Doctor Watson. You’ll be on your way after a spot of paperwork.” They make their way down the hall. “Before you go we’ll still need your fingerprints, however.”

“Unnecessary,” comes Sherlock’s voice from the end of the corridor.

A wave of relief hits John and floods the ancient part of his brain.

_He didn’t leave._

“He’s already been processed out whilst you were dallying,” Sherlock continues without missing a beat as John and Margaret walk back into reception. His eyes search John’s face. Strange, beautiful man. “And his prints are on record, which you’d know if you’d bothered to check.”

“Right,” John begins, uncertain. He puts it together. “Oh, right.” 

“Hadn’t a chance to check, had I, given that I was rudely interrupted…” Margaret mutters as she settles herself behind her desk. “Now that we’ve had a look at your military id, Doctor (—“Captain,” Sherlock again corrects—) Watson, it was RAMC, wasn’t it?” Margaret logs into her computer, pulls up the database. “Just need to match them.”

John narrows his eyes. “But we’re done, you said.”

Sherlock opens his mouth but she holds up a hand.

“You proved that you had a right to see each other given your relationship,” Margaret says, obviously still unconvinced, as she looks over to John, “but not that you are who you say you are.” She rallies her patience. “Please. It’s protocol.”

“Oh, well _protocol_ ,” Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“You mean we could have done this first,” John clarifies.

_Why didn’t we do this first?_

_Maybe he wanted to do the other thing?_

_But this would have been so much easier._

_Maybe he wanted to—_

_Do what I did for him?_

_Be my fake boyfriend?_

_…Kiss me again?_ John’s brain offers.

“John, if you please,” Sherlock says.

John holds out his hands.

Sherlock reaches behind the desk for the mobile fingerprint scanner and, ignoring Margaret’s objection, clicks it on. “I’ll do it.”

“Mr Holmes, you’re not a Met officer.” 

“Quite right, I’m consulting detective who’s wasted less time and solved more cases than every so-called Met officer, and according to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, Armed Forces Order 2009, section five, paragraph seven, ‘a person may not under this article carry out a search or examination of a person of the opposite sex,’ so therefore, seeing as Lestrade’s disappeared and—how convenient! _I’m_ the same sex as John— _I’ll_ do it,” Sherlock cups the scanner in his palm and John dutifully places his fingers in succession on the little pad. 

“But this isn’t a search or examination, Mr Holmes.”

_Isn’t it?_

John feels quite exposed, split open what with Sherlock’s eyes on him like a knife through butter. Tenuous, this, keeping it together whilst nearly holding hands, save for the bizarre circumstances and the fact that one of them is being electronically fingerprinted by the other at the moment.

_And most people barely kiss on the first date._

_But then we’re not most people._

John tucks his grin into his chest.

A few beeps and two minutes later, one Captain John H. Watson is approved for freedom.

“Apologies, Mr Watson, Mr Holmes,” Margaret bites out the words.

“It wasn’t your fault,” John says. 

_It’s—well, his, actually._

He looks at Sherlock. He can’t be cross. Tackled face down on the grotty pavement, shoved in the back of a police car, hours in a custody cell spent waiting parched and aching…and he isn’t cross.

_Oh for christ’s sake._

Sherlock, serene and smug, pops the collar of his coat and winks at John.

“You’re free to leave,” Margaret goes back to click-clacking on her keyboard, glad to be done with them.

They turn towards the entry but blocking their exit is a blond woman coming in at the same moment, struggling to support a half slumped-over man. One of his arms is strung across her shoulders; the other holds a bloody tissue to his nose, which is quite bloody, actually, from being punched in the face not long before the tissue found lodging there.

“He’s willing to give evidence!” the woman whinges at poor Margaret. “He wants that arsehole put away, don’t you, Theo!”

John freezes. It’s _her_.

“Geraldine!” Sherlock claps his hands together, feigns a superlatively happy grin. “We meet again.”

The woman turns to look at them. It’s Gemma From The Pub, no mistake: diamond stud earrings, long blond hair, utter persistence in the face of a non-interested, distracted bloke.

“It’s _Gemma_ ,” is all she says.

“And this must be Theo,” Sherlock gives the man a once-over.

 _Her hand tucked into the back trouser pocket of a well-dressed idiot of a City boy,_ John remembers. 

Sherlock eyes Gemma. Looks from the man to John. 

_Quite a pull._

Theo.

Where has he heard that name…recent, wasn’t it? He doesn’t recognise the broken-nosed well-dressed chap, not a bit, but Theo. 

 _Theo_! Ah. 

But there’s loads of Theos in London, surely. Probably fifty each square mile.

Still. Why not have a check _._

John chews on his bottom lip for a moment. Shifts his feet. Decides. “D’you know Harry Watson?” he asks. His voice is loud enough to quiet the lobby.

“C’mon mate, shove over,” Theo's nose is quite broken, which gives his voice a strangely muddled sound.

John pauses. “Harry Watson.”

“Dunno a bloke by that name.” Theo tries to step around them, but is blocked by John and Sherlock landing shoulder to shoulder in his way. 

Well.

Shoulder to upper arm.

“Harry Watson,” John says, “is my _sister_ , and I think you may have fucked her wife.”

Theo is impassive before a flicker of recognition crosses his face. Not horror, not disgust, not regret, but merely, John suspects, the dim recall of a vague, booze-soaked memory.

“Black curly hair? Green eyes? Tall?” John offers. He forces himself not to look at Sherlock. “Clara Kosaraju?”

The recognition settles into certainty.

“Sorry,” Theo mumbles.

_Not good enough._

An automatic rumble in his blood. He clenches his left hand into a fist, releases it. 

“I’d break your nose but someone’s done it for me,” John finally says to him. “Gemma,” he nods at her, curt. Without another word he turns on his heel and pushes out the door.

Gloriously cold, fresh air hits in him in the face.

The night is waning but it’s not light yet. An ashy sky stretches above him. John stands for a moment downwind of the relentless wintry breeze, stretches, expands his chest. Studies the Battle of Britain Memorial across the street to calm himself. Tries to think, to clear his head: what to tell Harry, if anything at all. What to do. How to get home. What to say to the man he’s kissed twice tonight.

Sherlock follows a few minutes later.

“How did you know?” Sherlock says without preamble.

“A guess,” John pauses. “My sister’d said, before. In a way.”

Sherlock is quiet.

John can’t read him. Doesn’t know what to do except stand there and try to force frigid air into his lungs. 

Sherlock clears his throat, awkward, and steps in front of John. “Your things.” He hands John his belt, shoelaces, wristwatch, jacket, wallet. 

“Thanks. Sorry.”

“For what?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” John slides on his belt, fastens his watch. Shoves his shoelaces in a pocket. Tucks his ID back into the wallet, then the wallet in another pocket, shrugs on his jacket. Sherlock’s presence calms him. “Chatting with Gemma?”

“Tidying up,” Sherlock tugs at his collar, then on the knot in his scarf. “Getting the arrest expunged from your record.”

“How _?_ ”

“My brother.” John starts to laugh, but Sherlock continues, vexed, “Fancies himself the British government. Which unfortunately he nearly is.”

“And my wallet?”

“Like I said, homeless network. Bit complicated.” Sherlock pauses to choose his words. “Something went wrong and I had it fixed.”

John can’t decide which line of inquiry to pursue, then decides not to ask. Fine. Not the priority at the moment, is it. More like: what do we do about what happens next.

They stand together for a few moments.

“Thanks for, for managing all that. Getting me out of there,” John says, breaking the silence. “Sorry about the questions.”

“Don’t be.”

“Boyfriends,” John laughs, a bit, under his breath. Testing. “What a lie."

"Why not?"

“Worked before,” John shrugs.

“It was worth a try." Sherlock smiles: a tiny, pointed thing.

The city gently thrums around them. It’s comforting and familiar: distant car engines and the hum of building ventilation systems, the flutter of the few remaining leaves still clinging to tree branches, birds’ cooing, braving the winter’s chill. The silent, empty embankment. Moonlight spearing through heavy clouds to fall in sheets over the river. John breathes in, admires London’s complexities on a night like this: grey-sheened and shining, beautiful, cold as tits. 

“Are you going on somewhere?” John hears himself say.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

He clears his throat. “Headed after Petrov, I mean. If you were trying to catch up to Lestrade.”

Sherlock is a taut silhouette against the golden glow of NSY. “I’ve just caught you,” he says.

“Oh.”

“Caught _up_ with you,” he amends, “and I owe you a drink,” before John can say anything. He wets his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue and John echoes the gesture, oblivious. Sherlock clasps his hands behind his back and dips his head to a shoulder as he says, “On account of before.”

_…like a date?_

“Like a…” John can’t name it, not yet. “When?”

“I was thinking now, actually.”

“Everywhere’s closed.”

“I know a place that isn’t.” Sherlock leaves it at that.

“Shall we get a cab?”

“No need. Five minute walk,” he spins on his heel, leaving John to follow. 

Moonlight, or more likely but no less lovely, artificial florescence from the lamps nearby, marks the outline of Sherlock’s hair and the cut of his shoulders in nearly blue-white, which shapes him into a rangy, electric shadow. 

John hurries after him.

“Kitchen curtains,” Sherlock says from nowhere as they dart up Richmond Terrace.

“Y—yeah, kitchen curtains.” John puts it together and rubs a thumb over an eyebrow. They’ve reached the solid security barrier that’s stamped in across the pavement. “Lucky guess. Should we go another—”

“I never guess and I prefer not to take the long route whenever possible,” Sherlock says as he throws himself over the fence in one fell swoop. The cape of his coat doesn’t even catch on the decorative wrought-iron spikes, the beautiful, agile bastard.

John crosses his arms over his chest. “If you fancy spending the next portion of the evening at A&E I’ll have a go at that, shall I,” he points.

Sherlock grins from the other side of the fence.

He does his best anyway. Luckily Sherlock’s spun off ahead with his back turned, and John can scramble awkwardly behind him.

“And well done on the murder.”

It takes John a moment.

“Thank you.” 

The sum of five minutes of an evening together and they’re already proving themselves to be stellar conversationalists.

“This way.”

John follows Sherlock automatically. Even if he didn’t want to, even if it went against his better judgment, he couldn’t stop himself. The pull is magnetic. John walks beside Sherlock, pauses when he pauses beside the building, notes his uncanny ability to enter the correct passcode into the keypad, and christ, it doesn’t even cross John’s mind that Sherlock wouldn’t know it, of course not, he just watches Sherlock, watches the way his fingers work, the way his mind works. John follows him past the CCTV in the direction to which he’s instructed to climb — _up_ — and follows him when Sherlock pushes open an armed door at the top of the spiral staircase.

Of course. What had he expected?

Turns out the place is very much open and very much not a pub, but rather a cleverly hidden bottle of whisky tucked into a secreted away spot, which happens to be built into one of the slopes of the mansard rooftop of Banqueting House. 

“Right.” John is giddy, wholly unmoored with the weirdness of it all. “You just…come up here, do you.”

“On occasion, to think.” Sherlock pulls the bottle from its hiding place.

A gust of wind tugs at the hem of John’s jacket. Nothing to guard against the elements up here. “Right.” He says again and looks around. “Won’t someone see us?”

Sherlock shrugs. “The someone that would’ve isn’t concerned with us at the moment.” He squats and digs for something else which he quickly tucks into a pocket. “Anyway. Doesn’t matter. We’re not staying.”

“Ah I rather thought we’d be pitching a tent.”

Hearing Sherlock laugh feels as good as it sounds.

They head down a winding staircase and up another set of steps and across an underground walkway and though a hidden exit door and up, up, up, up again, up a bit further this time, out through another supposedly armed but somehow disarmed door and back into the night.

_This is mad._

Who knew — or who wouldn’t have guessed — that the view from the roof of the neoclassical building next door is rather spectacular. Parliament, Jubilee and Westminster Bridges, Royal Festival Hall, St Thomas’ Hospital…all familiar landmarks John’s seen a million times over every single day for a million years and somehow they’re utterly changed in this moment, here and now, with Sherlock beside him. Lost for words, John watches the lights of the massive Eye quiver in rainbows across the surface of the Thames.

They walk along the edge of one of the four double ministoreys atop the covered courtyard glass roofing, eastward, toward the riverside. If he looks down, John can just manage to see the internal floor below, liquid-dark like the bottom of the ocean.

John wets his bottom lip. “You know this is the Ministry of Defence building, yeah?”

Sherlock gives him a look. 

“ _Jesus_ christ.”

“What.”

“It’s just, when you said get a drink I wasn’t expecting. This.”

“Good,” Sherlock smiles. 

“Isn’t there some law thing?”

“The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005,” he recites. “Makes it a criminal offence to trespass inside a protected site.”

“Yeah.”

“Well we’re not inside, are we.”

John laughs, a hearty, genuine laugh that bursts from his belly up through his chest. 

It startles Sherlock into laughing as well, which makes his eyes go all lovely and crinkly. He pulls out the bottle of whisky.

“I’m not particularly partial to this other than for the fact that I stole it from my brother,” Sherlock says as he pours out a finger of the Dalmore 50 Year Old single malt into the small tumbler he’d tucked into his pocket on the other rooftop. Cut crystal with a monogram of _MRVH_ , the round shape of the little glass fits perfectly into the curve of Sherlock’s grasp. Likely the whole set-up is equal to John’s annual salary. “Three months missing and Mycroft hasn’t noticed.”

“And you’ve nicked his glass.” 

Sherlock holds it out to John. “I’m not about to drink from the bottle like some kind of—”

John swipes the bottle and does just that. The whisky is delicious, easily the best John’s ever tasted by a mile: aged and smoky-sweet and remarkably smooth on the way down. 

“Cheeky."

"Am I."

Sherlock’s mouth pinches in his effort to suppress a grin. With a cockeyed smile he quirks an eyebrow and takes a sip from his little cup, then another. 

They look at each other for a long moment.

Sherlock downs his portion. John takes another pull from the bottle. 

…Nerves, perhaps.

John refills Sherlock’s glass. His eyes pause on their hands: his short, blunt fingers grasping the bottle and Sherlock’s graceful fingers cradling the crystal. Sherlock moves forward toward the Thames. “Shall we…admire the view,” he suggests politely.

_Good christ I want to kiss you again._

“Yeah,” John says instead.

They walk in silence over to the edge of the rooftop and look out. One could almost forget the temperature, with a view like this. Impossible, of course, but almost.

“So it’s true,” John says after a moment.

Sherlock looks over at him.

“You don’t drink gin.”

“Utterly vile.”

“Is it,” John says, huffs on a breath. “Thought a man like you would like it.”

“A man like me,” Sherlock raises an eyebrow and swallows down his whisky. 

John watches Sherlock’s throat move, realises he’s staring. Reaches over and pours him another finger or two into his posh little glass.

“I’m not who people think I am. Most people, anyway,” Sherlock says as an afterthought.

John meets his eyes. “Who do most people think you are?”

“A man like me.”

John doesn’t quite know what to make of that. Trees whoosh in the chilly breeze and Sherlock stays quiet. The silence isn’t awkward, but it grows heavy and pungent between them. A minute passes, maybe more, as they clutch their whisky and hope the other speaks first.

A police siren whirs by on the street down below. 

John, thankful for the interruption, switches the bottle from one hand to the other. “Suppose that’s Lestrade?”

The tiny chime of Sherlock’s mobile buried in a pocket adds timely punctuation. He digs it out of his coat, balancing the glass with the other hand, and peers at the lockscreen.

“Well done, Captain Watson.”

Hearing ‘Captain Watson,’ in that voice, after a few shots of whisky that's older than he is, well. It does things. It does interesting things to John’s blood.

_Say that again._

“Petrov?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need to—”

“No.”

Sherlock puts away the phone. 

The mood shifts.

Sherlock sniffs, lifts his chin, begins and finishes the pour in his glass. He turns to look at John. “Do things…happen for a reason.” It’s not a question.

John swallows another thousand-pound-mouthful of whisky. A gust of wind blows up Sherlock’s dark fringe, which makes him look younger, somehow, and the non-question more vulnerable. 

_I dunno._

_Did I get shot for a reason?_

_Did I meet you for a reason?_

_Am I on the glass rooftop of the fucking MoD building at nearly 4.00 in the morning drinking ridiculous whisky with you for a reason?_

_Hope so._

Sherlock studies John with his fascinating eyes. Pins him down, splays him out, exposes him. John finds it unnerving. John finds he likes it, a lot.

“Reasons. Choices. Intentions, not accidents.”

John carefully looks away and out at London’s skyline. “Tonight happened.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, soft and unsure.

“Nothing I did tonight was an accident.”

“Oh.”

“Broadly speaking, I mean. Hadn’t planned on getting arrested.”

“No,” Sherlock’s eyes drill into John. “I should hope not.”

“But I don’t think anything you did was an accident either.” The words feel dangerous.

“…No.”

John braves Sherlock’s gaze. “You left your scarf. On purpose, I think.”

“Did I.” 

“You knew I’d try to find you.”

“I’d…hoped,” Sherlock admits and looks away, a squirming pinch of a smile round his mouth.

“What, like Cinderella,” John laughs.

“You’re not saying you crossed the whole of London persuading strange men to try on my scarf,” Sherlock smirks into the rim of his glass. “Did you?” he says quietly as he takes a sip.

John’s cheeks pink. “Only one,” he says. “I got lucky.”

“Glad I made such a memorable impression.”

The pink deepens.

They each take another drink, John from the bottle and Sherlock from his brother’s cut crystal. The tension from earlier has lessened, but each picks at what remains.

“How’d you know, though?”

“How did you?”

John’s lost track of exactly what lies buried there. “Sorry—just, to be clear—it wasn’t your intention to have me implicated in a Bulgarian drug-running operation.”

“Ah. That part of the night went a bit off-piste.”

“It was you, though.”

“Hm?”

“You described me instead of Petrov, Sergeant Donovan said.”

Sherlock sniffs, gently defiant. “An accident.”

“Was it?” John can’t help himself.

_Not a choice? Not a chance to get me back?_

“A mistake.” Sherlock lowers his chin. “Mistakes can provide extremely useful data.”

“I don’t mind, you know.”

Sherlock studies him.

“Good.”

John hesitates.

“She said you were a psychopath.”

“Not surprised.”

“Does it bother you?”

Sherlock pauses, then blinks away whatever temporarily clouds him. “Do you think it’s true?”

“No.”

“Then no."

They each take another drink. 

Dance round things or be direct. Decide.

_Enough._

John takes a decision and senses his face flooding hot, even in the cold. His hands are steady but for obvious reasons he considers he’d feel better if he wasn’t holding a £45,000 bottle of fifty-year-old whisky, so he sets it down between his feet.

Nearly chokes on his heart on its way out of his mouth.

“Sherlock.”

“Mm.”

“You know…how you meet people, and then, that’s it?”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

John continues. “People come into your life and, I dunno. It’s like train tracks. Or.” 

“Train tracks.”

John clears his throat. “I mean you meet them once and then go on with things. Parallel lives. Never see them again.”

“Don’t have a reason.”

It suddenly dawns on John that Sherlock is quite close, so close that if he were to reach out he’d hit the air past his shoulder. “Look, I know we haven’t known each other very long. Barely know each other at all, really, but.” 

“Go on.”

John surrenders his last bits of self-preservation, boxes up every sensible British instinct he has, and puts himself wholly out there. 

“The thing is, I want a reason. I don’t want to wonder ‘what happened to him. I wish—I wish I would’ve done something.'” He holds Sherlock’s gaze, holds out his choked-out heart in the palm of his hand all the more ready for breaking. “So. I’m doing something.”

“John.”

“I’m asking for a reason.”

Something fractures between them, rises up past the surface of desperately unspoken and turns itself out raw.

Sherlock is extremely close, keenly close, and all John can see is the naked want on his face, and his searching, stunning, iridescent eyes. The entirety of London melts away around them, dreamlike, leaving only impressionistic notions of where they are and what they were doing. Top of a building? Maybe. Getting to the point? God help him.

“You have one.”

“Just—to be friends, even, if you’d like.”

Sherlock’s eyes are dark pools. His lips part. “You have one,” he repeats. “A reason.”

John realises what Sherlock’s said. “You would…”

Puffs of Sherlock’s breath bloom warm on his face. There’s no audience this time, no catering their performance to a waiting public, no need to eliminate an unwanted hanger-on, no attempt to win one’s freedom, nothing of the sort. They’re only just two men atop the glass roofing of a restricted site drinking stolen whisky in the dark and fumbling attempts at honesty. He could reach out and touch him, touch past him, they’re less than an arms length away, less than half an arm’s length away. If John was taller or Sherlock shorter their foreheads might touch. 

Pity.

“…like to be friends?” John continues.

Sherlock’s voice is perfectly quiet, so curled-up at the edges that John almost doesn’t hear him. “I don’t have friends.” He clears his throat. “I have you.”

“A friend?” His heart beats, intact.

“A friend.”

“Good," he nods.

 _Good. Better than good._  

Sherlock pauses and blinks himself into bravery. “One…minor clarification.”

“Hm.”

“Are we the type of friends that kiss on the mouth, because I want to—”

A near-sigh of relief: “Christ yes—”

The rest is lost, unheard, as human voices—kisses—can often be, especially up against the sound of crystal shattering.

The whisky tumbler meets its end. Sherlock drops it without a thought: it slips from his fingers as he moves toward John at the same moment John moves towards him, as Sherlock’s hand comes round the back of John’s head to rest along his hairline whilst another thumbs at his jaw, as John’s arms come up to Sherlock’s waist to hold him.

It’s both immensely unhurried and completely the opposite: like plummeting in slow motion, it can’t happen fast enough, the beautiful inevitability of certainty. Each moment consumes an eternity and somehow John struggles to attend to each sensation before slipping into the next.

Sherlock dips his head. John lifts his.

Their lips meet.

It’s unlike the other two kisses of the evening—performed for a crowd, rather chaste and charming and planned—this, this is something else entirely. 

This is them, private and alone, without facades, without schemes.

He kisses him. 

He kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses him.

Pressed together chest to chest and wind-whipped: Sherlock holds John as he holds Sherlock as their mouths move together, against each other, into the other, wet-warm and sweet. Sherlock tastes of alcohol and smells of sandalwood, and John’s cheek heats the tip of his nose, cold where it pushes against his skin. The kiss opens and deepens and John, helpless, knocks the whisky bottle from where it’s sat between his feet. It rolls a metre over to the edge of the roof and down several storeys until it soundlessly crash-lands in the shrubby gardens. Neither of them notice a whit. 

Sod Mycroft, the sophisticated bastard.

Sherlock’s tongue meets John’s just as the helicopter appears from nowhere.

“Sherlock Holmes! Get down at once!” the voice on a loudspeaker pierces the wind.

Speak of the devil.

Sherlock doesn’t even look up. “Mycroft,” he groans.

Helicopter blades whisk frigid air into a maelstrom above their heads and they break apart, no less helped by the stark beam of a spotlight trained on them like a laser.

“Remove yourselves immediately! This is a grade I listed property!” the voice — Mycroft Holmes, owner of delicately cut and newly shattered crystal cup — bellows.

John holds up his hands but Sherlock shouts a flurry of profanity up at the blind spot, which is pointless, really, for many reasons, and he seems to realise the fruitlessness of his efforts as quickly as he’s started. 

The loudspeaker buzzes as it clicks on and off. “I will not hesitate to use force, Sherlock!”

“Clearly gutted about the whisky,” John quips. He looks down. “Where is it?”

Sherlock laughs, which makes the joy in John’s chest grow wings.

“Suppose there’s better places to continue this whole kissing on the mouth thing?” he shouts above the noise. “Maybe a bit warmer?”

“Back to Baker Street?” 

 

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

 

 

Five pairs of eyes stare at John. Five mouths below them hang open.

“ _That’s_ how you met,” Mike Stamford finally pipes up.

John nods. “That’s how we met.”

Sherlock plonks down another pair of pints on the table and plops down next to John on the overstuffed pub sofa. Mildly disgruntled, he flops one leg over the other. The pint’s mostly for show, he’s a whisky man after all. John will drink the both of them in a reasonable amount of time and then they’ll go home, bicker over the lungs in the fridge, and bonk each other silly.

“Incredible.”

“And you moved in straight away?”

“Next day actually. He needed a flatmate.” Beside him Sherlock snorts at the old joke. John winks. “Said he did, anyway.”

“How long’s it been, then?” someone else asks.

“Married twelve years this September,” Sherlock says.

“Cheers to that, you two. Not everyone can manage half, present company included,” Mike says as he raises his pint. “To Sherlock and John.” Everyone echoes the gesture.

John picks up his beer. “To us.”

“To us,” Sherlock smiles as he reaches for his.

Their glasses clink together. They don’t break.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I owe my life to a photo on Wikipedia for helping with the roofs of both the MoD building and Banqueting House. You may have guessed that I have not set foot there myself to secret away bottles of alcohol.
> 
> 2) Conveniently, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005 includes this curious loophole: whilst the walls and vehicle ramps are restricted, this "does not include the steps, ramps, and porticos that give access to the inside of the building." Wouldn't put it past Sherlock to take advantage of this whenever possible.
> 
> 3) The whisky THAT THEY ARE NOT FULLY APPRECIATING AND CHUGGING LIKE MANIACS BECAUSE THEY'RE SO DAMN NERVOUS FOR CHRISTSAKES BOYS GET IT TOGETHER is priced around £45,000, which is a little lowball on what an average London GP makes, so John wasn't wrong on his estimate. I'd imagine Mycroft was gifted this bottle as a thank you for work that Sherlock did on solving a case and...you know the rest.
> 
> 4) Thank you for reading! Your kudos and comments mean everything.


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